


Supernova

by hopeboos



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Elements of The Time Traveller's Wife, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, Lee Chan | Dino-centric, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, OT3, Plot, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Precognition, Science Fiction, Time Travel, theyre in uni for at least 2/3 of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 45,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeboos/pseuds/hopeboos
Summary: He spends the next few days near losing his mind. Instead of listening in class, he writes a list of positives and negatives about Wonwoo and Jeonghan, and then rips it out, because it feels dumb and reductive to put his feelings into factors likeis a good kisserandis a time travellerandI actually know things about him other than the fact that he’s a time traveller. They’re both such different people that it seems impossible to compare them with what he knows so far. It all comes down to one factor, anyway—Wonwoo is his future. He knows that. He’s more or less seen it, with the way Wonwoo knows him so well. Jeonghan is his present, what he can have right now—but at one point or another, that will have to stop. Right?orTime is a strange thing, but Wonwoo and Jeonghan's presence in his life is even stranger. Between some unpredictable time travel, snapshots of precognition, and a few tough inclines, they figure things out together.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Lee Chan | Dino, Jeon Wonwoo/Lee Chan | Dino/Yoon Jeonghan, Jeon Wonwoo/Yoon Jeonghan, Lee Chan | Dino/Yoon Jeonghan
Comments: 115
Kudos: 177





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ages are by the international system, though I don't think it matters much. I sure had fun writing this, but it's been in my head since late november, so I'm pretty glad it's finally done. I hope you're ready for some time travel fun, kids!

The scooter catches a crack in the concrete, and the wheel sticks there, throwing him onto the unforgiving street surface. It bites at his knees and stings his hands, and tears spring to his eyes.

“Chan?” Seungkwan calls back from where his scooter had sped ahead, unimpeded by things like unlucky potholes.

He takes in a hitched breath and tries not to wail. It comes out as a halfway sob as he sits back, staring down at his bloody hands, the freshly cut knees.

“Oh!” Seungkwan says, clutching the handles of his scooter. “I’ll go and get help! Don’t worry!” With that, he speeds off down the street, leaving him alone.

His lip wobbles and he tries to wipe bloody hands on his shorts, only causing the grit to dig in more, and the cry leaves him properly this time. He looks down at his bloody hands helplessly and lets the tears dribble down his face and onto his shirt. The cuts sting. He wants his mom to kiss it better, and for his dad to give him a dinosaur band-aid and call him a brave boy. He tries to grab the handles of his scooter, get home by himself, but it hurts to touch them, so he drops it to sit back on his butt and cry some more instead, wiping his snotty nose on his arm.

“Are you okay?” a voice says from his left, and he looks up to see a man crossing the street to make his way over to him.

Chan hiccups, and the man jogs over, kneeling down in front of him. His clothes are dark and his eyes are sharp, and Chan shrinks away from him, intimidated by his deep voice and big height. But when the man holds a hand out for Chan’s palm, he offers it automatically, and his touch is so gentle. Like Chan is as fragile as glass.

“Oh, that’s not good is it,” the man coos, inspecting the scrapes carefully. “Did you fall?”

Chan makes a miserable noise of agreement, wiping at his eyes with the balled fist of his other hand.

“Your knees too,” the man says. “You should take more care, Chan.”

He looks up at the man again. He doesn’t recognise him.

The man smiles, reassuring. “It’s okay though. It’ll heal. Right?”

“I guess so.” He sniffs again, but the tears have stopped flowing, leaving him feeling dirty and sticky.

“Do you want me to walk you home?”

He shrugs. He’s still feeling pretty sorry for himself, but he doesn’t want to show the gentle man any weakness. He can be brave.

“Okay. Let’s go slowly. I’ll take your scooter.” The man stoops awkwardly to pick up the little scooter, then offers out his hand to help Chan stand up and take small steps. He holds onto his big fingers gladly, watching the ground as he walks so he doesn’t fall again. The man helps him along home, steady the whole way, with Chan pulling him around the right corners. When they turn his street, knees no longer stinging so much and confidence now returning, he lets go of his hand to run ahead. Down the narrow road, speeding all the way until he reaches his house, barging inside to find Mom.

“Mom!” he calls. “I fell!”

“Oh, baby,” his mom says, emerging from the kitchen. “Are you okay?”

“I need a dinosaur bandage,” he says, showing her his hands. “Look. It hurts.”

Once he has a band-aid on each palm and two on his knees, all kissed better by Mom, she looks over at the open front door. “Did you put your scooter away already?”

“No, the man brought it back.”

“What man?”

He runs outside to find the scooter waiting on its side outside the door. The street is empty again.

-

He skips up the steps of the escalator two at a time, weaving through shoppers with speed. Mom gave him twenty minutes to get there and back, which isn’t as much time as he’d like, but he’ll take what he can get.

The toy store is big and bustling with people, but it doesn’t take him long to find what he’s looking for. He’s come to look at it every time they come to the mall, to make big eyes at it and have his mom shake her head and pull him away. There’s still some left, thankfully, he can see the boxes lining the shelf from here, full of animatronic dinosaurs complete with a remote control and roaring noises. If he has enough pocket money from the elders over the New Year, combined with his birthday money…

He looks up at the price tag and back down at the cash in his hand. He already knows how much he has, but he counts again, just to be sure, just in case it’s multiplied since he last counted in the car on the way here.

It hasn’t, and he stares up at the box again, heart dropping. He’s still thirty thousand won short, which is over a month’s worth of allowance money, and if he waits that long, all the T-Rexes will be gone! His lips drop into a wobbly pout, trying to suppress his disappointment.

“Oh, hey,” a voice says from behind him. “That’s pretty cool.”

He turns to see a tall man looking up at the dinosaur he has his eye on. “Yeah,” he says, impassively.

“Do you need help getting it down?” the man asks, and his eyes seem familiar from somewhere. His voice is low, a little comforting.

“No,” he says, showing the man his crumpled won notes. “I don’t have enough money.”

“Oh,” the man says, squatting down on his haunches to be on his level. “How much do you have?”

“I need thirty thousand more,” he says, scuffing his shoe against the floor. The man looks at him, and then looks around the shop, eyeing up the other kids and parents around them.

“Hey,” he says in stage whisper, digging into his back pocket. “What day is it?”

“Uh,” Chan says, not entirely sure. “February.”

“Good enough,” he says, thumbing through his wallet. He pulls out exactly thirty thousand won and hands it to him, and he scrambles to take it eagerly without dropping the rest of his money. “Happy Birthday, Chan.”

He looks down at the money, wide-eyed. He’s not sure what to say.

“Do you need help getting it down now?” the man asks with a wide smile, and he stands again, reaching up for the box. “Shall we go and buy it?”

He nods mutely, eyes trained on the box the man is reaching out for, but Mom’s voice sounds up in his head, telling him to be polite. “Thank you, Ahjussi,” he says, following him to the short queue at the front of the toy shop.

The man snorts in response. “Hey, I’m not that old, I promise. You should call me Wonwoo-hyung.”

“Oh,” he says. “Okay, Hyung.”

When they get to the front of the line, Wonwoo hands the box to the cashier, and Chan stretches up to put all the cash on the counter. He’s short for his age, but he can still see over the top, and waits anxiously as she counts all the money. The transaction goes through, and she bags up the box, handing it back to Wonwoo and wishing them a nice day.

They walk out of the store together and Chan reaches out to tug at the bag, which Wonwoo concedes to him easily. He looks inside to check the box is still there, then stops in the middle of the mall to properly pull it out, marvelling at the fact that it’s really his, now! He can start playing with the dinosaur that’s going to move and roar and chase his little brother around, and it’s amazing, the excitement of it all, just when he thought he’d have to wait even longer. He puts it back in the bag, though, knows better than to get it out properly in the middle of the crowded mall.

He needs to be getting back to Mom, too. He turns around to see the man looking down at him with a fond face. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah!” he says, flushed and happy. “Thank you, Wonwoo-hyung! I have to find my mom again now, though.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo says, waving to him as Chan backs up towards the escalators, bag clutched in hand. “Have fun with the dinosaur!”

“I will!” he shouts back, before turning and running down the stairs, taking them as quickly as he can. “Thank you!”

-

He thinks about him sometimes. Grows a little older, and realises how strange it all was. Wonwoo-hyung who had appeared out of nowhere and bought him the toy he’d wanted for no apparent reason. Maybe he was a secret millionaire, going around doing good deeds for ordinary people. Maybe he was an estranged father, regretting not being able to buy his own son gifts. Maybe he was a child abductor, trying his luck with Chan before he’d run away, back to his Mom. He’s pretty sure it isn’t that one. He was nice—genuinely nice, he remembers the kindness in his eyes.

As it turns out, the truth is more exciting than anything he had dreamed up.

He’s sat at home, doing his homework, window wide open in the hopes of getting anything resembling a breeze into his stiflingly hot bedroom. It’s hard to focus on anything with the way the thick humidity of the air weights him down; the English words on the page all seem to blur in front of his eyes, dripping down the page like ice cream. Mmm. God, he’d kill for some ice cream.

Just as he’s thinking about making a dash for the fridge, there’s a thudding noise from behind him, disturbing his otherwise still bedroom. He jolts, turning in his desk chair to see a teenage boy sitting on his bedroom floor, clothes drenched and heavy with water. Chan’s pen drops from his hand.

“Hello?” he says, cautiously. The door to his bedroom is still shut, and there had been no noise from his parents in the main room. The boy had just… appeared here.

“Ah,” the boy says, looking up and pushing wet hair out of his eyes. “Sorry.”

He gasps. “Wonwoo?”

The way the boy meets his eyes tells him he’s right—this is the same Wonwoo he remembers, sharp eyes and lean frame, but he looks years younger than he was before. Middle school, maybe—a similar age to Chan.

“Yes?” Wonwoo says, cautiously.

“It’s you!” he exclaims, delighted. “What—how—?”

“Um,” Wonwoo says, and a fierce shiver passes through his body. “Do I know you?”

“I—well—” Chan looks at him. He’s still dripping water onto his floor. “Hang on, I’ll get you a towel first.”

He stands up from his chair so quickly it’s left spinning in place after him, shoots out of the door and jogs down the hall to the bathroom, pulling any towel from the airing cupboard.Careful to use light feet on the hard floor, he runs back to his room, shutting the door quietly behind him. His mom will kill him if she finds out he has friends over, and it’s kind of hard to explain that he hadn’t exactly invited him here.

Wonwoo takes the towel from him with a quiet _thank you,_ begins towelling off his hair aggressively.

“What did you do?” he asks, watching him. “Go swimming with all your clothes on?”

“Was caught in the middle of a storm before I got here,” Wonwoo says. “Being stupid. It’s probably what triggered me.”

“Triggered you?”

He emerges from under the towel. “You know. To jump.”

“Jump where?”

“Do you know me or not?” He starts to squeeze water out of his shirt into the towel. “How much do you know?”

“Nothing. I don’t understand.”

Wonwoo pauses for a second, eyes him up. “Do you believe in time travel?”

“Are you saying you’re a time traveller?”

“When we met before, was I older?”

“Well, yeah. You were an adult.”

Wonwoo picks at his school blazer, dark with water. “Do I look like an adult now? Didn’t I just appear out of nowhere in your bedroom, soaking wet on a hot evening?”

He stares, open mouthed. He clicks it shut when Wonwoo raises his eyebrows at him, expression a little amused. “Huh. You’re a time traveller.”

“Yup. I don’t know why I’m here, though. I’ve only ever turned up in places from my own timeline before.”

“You’ve turned up in mine more than once, I think.”

“Really,” Wonwoo murmurs, looking back at him. “Huh.”

Then Chan blinks, and Wonwoo disappears, towel and all.

-

“Hey,” he says to Seungkwan in the middle of math class. “Do you think Seokmin would go on a date with me if I asked him?”

“Who would want to go on a date with you?” Seungkwan asks, not taking his eyes from the paper he’s squashing into a ball.

He rolls his eyes. “I’m asking if you think he’s into guys. It seems like it.”

“How’d you figure that one out?”

“He was staring at one of the senior guys really hard the other day. Stars in his eyes and everything.”

“Then I’ll repeat the question,” Seungkwan says, setting the paper ball down. “Why would he want to go on a date with you if he fancies senior boys?”

“Not everyone is as mean as you are,” Chan says, sticking out his tongue. Teacher Kang starts passing out worksheets, and he stands, jumping at the chance to offer to hand them out. She hands off the worksheets to him with a distracted nod and continues speaking about the task.

Seungkwan flicks the paper ball at him as he’s passing the sheets along the desks behind them. “Teachers pet.”

“Asshole,” Chan says, moving away to scan the room. Seokmin sits at the back of the class, and if he moves around the room strategically, he can reach him last.

The teacher sits down in her seat, which is a cue for the students completely ignore the worksheets in front of them, turning to their friends instead to talk about anything but math.

“Hey,” Chan says when he reaches Seokmin’s table. The seat next to him is empty, so he takes that as a good sign, and sits down as he passes him his worksheet.

“Thanks!”

“It’s okay,” he smiles, as if he came all the way over here to deliver Seokmin his worksheet personally. Well. He sort of did. “Hey, have you seen that funfair they put up in the city?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you been to it?”

“No, just heard about it. It looks so cool! Have you been?”

“Actually, I wondered if you wanted to go? Together?”

Seokmin blinks at him. “With the others?”

“No, I mean together. The two of us.” He shuffles a little closer, puts on his prettiest smile. “If you want to.”

Seokmin’s eyes widen a little as he catches on. “Oh! Well. Sure?”

He’ll take that as an enthusiastic yes. “Great!”

“Lee Chan, please get back in your seat!” Teacher Kang drawls from the front.

“I’ll see you there on Saturday? At 6?”

Seokmin blinks again, nodding quickly as Chan stands up to head back to his seat. He sends him a wink before turning his back, dropping down at his desk beside Seungkwan. Flawlessly executed, if he does say so himself.

“How’d it go?” Seungkwan has a whole row of paper balls in front of him now, and his worksheet is nowhere to be seen.

“Awesome,” he gloats. “He’ll be there.”

“Have fun sucking face with Lee Seokmin,” Seungkwan says, beginning to flick the paper balls into Yena’s hair. “Rather you than me.”

-

He waits for half an hour at the gates of the fair. He checks his phone every minute, looks around, walks up and down the street in case there’s another entrance Seokmin could be waiting at. There isn’t. He’s not there.

Sitting down on the curb of the sidewalk, he checks his phone again. Nothing.

“Woah!”

Nearly jumping out of his skin at the sudden appearance of a pair of legs in front of him, he scrambles back to his feet. When he looks up, he’s met with he sight of none other than Wonwoo standing there, pink-cheeked and wearing a Christmas sweater. There’s a flimsy party hat on his head, and a half-full beer in his hand.

“Wonwoo!” he exclaims.

“Chan!” Wonwoo says back, just as surprised. He seems happy to see him, despite clearly being pulled away from a party. “Long time no see!”

“How is it you always turn up when I need help?” he marvels, smiling up at him. He’s stood up on the curb, and Wonwoo is stepped down on the road, but he’s still a little taller than him.

Wonwoo laughs and gives him a bow. “Always at your service. What is it you need today?”

“I’ve been stood up on a date, I think. He was supposed to be here half an hour ago.”

Wonwoo’s face morphs into a frown. “Well, that’s not very nice.”

“I know! He could have at least cancelled with some bullshit reason, so I wasn’t left standing here like a loser.”

“Well, it would be a waste not to put that time waiting to good use, right?” Wonwoo steps up onto the curb and offers Chan his arm. “Shall we go?”

“You’re going to come to the fair with me?” He smiles, hooking his arm around Wonwoo’s. “Just like that?”

“It’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? I couldn’t let your highness go on the Ferris wheel all on his lonesome!”

He laughs, loud and clear, as they step through the gates of the fairground together. The neon lights from the rides and yellow lights strung between stalls bounce from Wonwoo’s glasses under the dusk sky, and Chan thinks he looks handsome, almost glowing in the bustling atmosphere. There’s a sort of nervous pride in his chest to be walking around with someone like him, gives him a rush to know that people might look and think that they’re together, that people from school might be here and see. He doesn’t need other boys who stand him up when he has the handsome Wonwoo-hyung and his apparition act, with all his kindness and all his mystery.

“What do you want to go on first?” he asks, and Chan grins.

“Are you ready to be annihilated on the bumper cars?”

“We’ll see about that, Lee Chan!”

The bumper cars are fun, but the huge ride in the middle of the fair, the one that sends them up and around and swooping down in ways that make him breathless, is by far his favourite. He can hear Wonwoo laughing in the seat beside him when they’re way up high and tilted to look into the deep blue evening sky.

The night is only made better from there by the stuffed tiger Wonwoo wins on hook-a-duck right after, by the cotton candy he buys for them both to chew on as they walk between stalls, looking out for their next game.

“I feel like a bad influence,” Wonwoo admits, handing him the stick of cotton candy as he pays the man at the stand. His party hat is gone, flown off when they were on the death drop, but he still has his Christmas sweater on in late spring. Chan loves it, loves the looks it gets them, giggles every time someone does a double take as they pass him, full of Christmas cheer in the middle of April.

“Why’s that?”

“This stuff is terrible for your teeth.”

“You’re such an old man,” Chan scoffs, taking a bite to feel it dissolve in his mouth. “We’re at a funfair! It’s not like I’m about to make this my diet plan.”

Wonwoo laughs. “You’re such a kid. Do you remember the time you called me ahjussi?”

His cheeks grow warm. He does remember. “Hey, I was like, eight! You were my ahjussi at that time!”

“Yeah, but it’s weird when we…” Wonwoo trails off, looking at Chan. “How old are you now? Fifteen?”

“Sixteen,” he says. “Though I was fifteen when we met in my bedroom.”

“That’s the last time you saw me?”

He nods.

“You’ll understand why that’s funny a little later on, then. Not yet.”

“How much later?” he asks, shooting him a look.

Wonwoo just grins at him, ducks forward to take a bite of the cotton candy Chan’s holding. “You’ll see.”

“Hey, you should tell me something,” he grouses. “You’ve just been turning up in my life and taking my towels and not telling me anything about you apart from your name. I don’t even know if you’re real. Maybe I’m crazy, and I’ve been imagining you this whole time.”

Wonwoo tilts his head in acknowledgement. “True. I don’t want to give you spoilers, though. We might mess up our timelines, or something.”

“Are you a time traveller or not? You don’t seem to know much about this whole thing.”

“Hey!”

“Confirming that you’re a real person isn’t going to hurt anything. If you avoid that question, you’ll only make me nervous.”

He grins. “What else would I be? You can touch me. You went on rides with me. I bought you cotton candy.”

“You could be my guardian angel. Why else would you come and help me all these times?”

“I’m real. You’re real. Sometime soon, you’ll meet me properly, when I’m not jumping about through your timeline. That’s when we can get down to the details. Until then…”

“How long can you stay?” he asks. “This time? How long can you time travel for?”

“My longest stay has only been a few hours. I’ll probably have to go back, soon.”

Chan pouts at him. “What if I hold onto you? Won’t it keep you here? I don’t want you to go, yet.”

“I’ll only slip right through your hands. Don’t worry. I’ll see you again soon.”

Chan hugs him tightly anyway, face buried in his shoulder, and tugs him over to the Ferris wheel before their time is up. Wonwoo disappears when they’re going over the top, leaving Chan with a vast view of Iksan, and the bite of its cold night air on his skin.

-

“I think I might apply to Kyunghee,” Seungkwan muses, flicking through the prospectus. “The entrance grades aren’t as ridiculously high as Yonsei. Still not exactly easy, but…”

Chan makes an affirmative noise, not looking up from his phone.

“You could at least pretend to be interested,” Seungkwan says, dropping the prospectus on the desk between them. “Aren’t your parents on your ass about this too?”

“Duh.”

“So why are you putting it off?”

“I’m trying to find Wonwoo first. I need to go wherever he is.”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes, and he pretends not to notice. “You know, anyone else would call that guy a child groomer.”

He grimaces, finally looking up from his phone. He wishes he’d thought to ask Wonwoo for his family name; it’s frustrating, trying to look for him on social media with almost nothing to go on. “Excuse me?”

“This adult keeps turning up at various points in your childhood—knows your name, the street you live on, he’s way older than you but takes you on a funfair date—”

He knew he shouldn’t have told Seungkwan about Wonwoo. He’s his closest friend, which is exactly why it was a bad idea—he’s worried Chan is being fed lies about time travel as if he’s still a four-year-old, being lured into some predator’s trap. He’s not stupid. If Seungkwan had seen him appear out of nowhere several times, he’d believe it too.

“He wasn’t an adult every time. He was my age when he appeared in my bedroom. And I told you, the funfair wasn’t really a date.”

“I’m just saying. Why even try to follow him? He’s clearly the one following you.”

“Exactly. He’s come to me every time, but I have to be the one to go to him the first time we meet properly.”

“Properly?” Seungkwan raises an eyebrow. “The mutual stalking thing you’ve got going on is weird, you know.”

Chan dismisses him with a wave of a hand. “You should have some more faith in me. I’m not stupid, and I’m not lying. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you the truth.”

He can feel Seungkwan’s eyes on him for another minute as he goes back to scrolling through social media. “Okay. Say I believe you. Time travel is real, and this guy is a part of your future—doesn’t that mean you should just let the future happen without trying to change things?”

Chan looks up again. “What?”

He shrugs. “Wouldn’t it be worse to try and meddle with the future? Rather than trying to force yourself to find him, if you let things play out how they should, you’re bound to find him sooner or later.”

Chan blinks. “But how do I know that things are playing out as they should now?”

“What else would you be doing? Continue as you were, and it’ll work out, right?”

“So… keep looking for him on social media?”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes at him again. “I mean, think about yourself. Go to university, pick your course and go for the best one you can find. Your paths will cross, you already know they will, because Wonwoo told you so.”

“How are you so sure things work like that when time travel is involved?”

“How can it not? Everything is locked into place now that Wonwoo told you about your future. Because if it didn’t happen, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you in the first place.”

He scratches his head. “That’s confusing.”

“I’m using my brain. It’s this thing called logic, I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it.”

“You were the one calling him a child groomer five minutes ago!”

“Because that’s more likely than time travel, Chan!”

“But you believe me now?”

Seungkwan wrinkles his nose. “I have to. You’re a bad liar, and you didn’t even blink when you told me he magically appeared in your bedroom, wet all over. Sounds like the start of a bad porno.”

“Hey!” Chan laughs out loud, then looks around to check no one else in the library is listening to them. “It’s not like that!”

“But you want it to be, right?”

Chan flushes pink, and Seungkwan grins.

“Gotcha!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Do you think he’s your future husband or something? That’s why you’re looking so hard?”

“You can’t blame me for hoping,” he whines. “You should see him. He’s so handsome, God, and hopefully when we meet properly we’ll be close in age, and we won’t have his stupid time limit to work around—”

“So this is your problem! You’re too busy daydreaming about Wonwoo to dream about your actual future!”

“No!” he says hotly. “I already know what I want to do! You’re just slow on the uptake!”

“And you’re applying to…?”

“If I don’t find Wonwoo before the application date, Yonsei, Hanyang, and Kyunghee. The Contemporary Dance course.”

“Of course.”

“Yeah. I’ve always been planning on studying dance. You’d better hurry up and pick your own subject, or I’ll leave you behind.”

Seungkwan shakes his head and picks up the prospectus again. “I think not, Lee Chan. What would you do without me?”

-

Kyunghee University has the biggest library he’s ever been in, and he’s not impressed. He’s a dance student, but he still has to write essays, still has to take out books on productions and choreographers and the evolution of styles. Essays are no fun as it is, but trying to navigate the increasingly confusing organisation system only adds to his resentment about it all. Maybe the essay tasks are meant to break their spirit more than anything. He imagines his teacher laughing at all her students from her office chair, taking glee in the suffering of the next generation.

He wanders up and down the same shelf four times trying to find the right combination of letters and numbers he has written down that should lead him to his book. None of it matches. Circles the section of the library, past the study desks, past the set of stairs leading to the computer room. Back and forth, until he arrives back at the same shelf, and it still doesn’t have the book he’s looking for.

He sighs and turns around, scans the room, only to find a boy watching him from his study desk across the room. The boy smiles when Chan catches him looking, and it throws him wildly off guard— the guy is handsome as hell, idol-level looks with long hair past his shoulders, and he’s looking at Chan. Deliberately.

Then he realises it’s probably because he’s been walking around the same section of the library for the past twenty minutes, to no avail. Not because of an actual interest. Chan sends him a smile, and turns back to check his book code for the sixth time, half hoping the boy will turn away, half hoping he’ll come and help him out. He’ll never get this essay written otherwise.

“You’re not looking for this are you?” the boy calls, holding up a book. Chan squints around at it, and surely enough, it’s exactly the book Chan is looking for. Out of everything in this huge, annoying library, it’s the one book that’s being used.

“Oh!” he says, approaching the boy’s desk between the shelves. “It is! Do you know if there are any more copies?”

“There aren’t,” the blonde boy says. His eyes are intense as he looks up at him, and there’s a slight curve to his mouth, like he knows something Chan doesn’t. “But you can have this one. I wasn’t really using it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Certain. I’m not a dance student. I was hoping it would have something related to my degree.”

“Thank you!” He takes the book from his hand, and it’s surprisingly heavy. He has another to go and find now, but he feels compelled to stay and make a little polite conversation, something to thank him for the book. “What do you study?”

“History,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “I know, boring compared to dance, but it interests me.”

“Oh, no!” Chan says earnestly. “You must be so smart! I could never do history, but it’s so cool. I think it’s definitely applicable to today, you know, no matter what people say. History repeats itself, after all. It’s important we remember the past.”

“I agree,” the boy says, smiling, all charm and bright eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Chan,” he says, sticking a hand out.

The boy shakes it politely. “Jeonghan. You’re a first year, right?”

“Am I that obvious?”

Jeonghan shrugs. “Just a guess. Come and find me if you need help in the library again, yeah?”

“Sure, of course. Are you around here a lot?”

Jeonghan smiles. “I will be.”

-

After that, he starts seeing Jeonghan a lot. A disproportionate amount, actually. He has a part time job at the coffee shop on campus, and serves Chan his hot chocolate; his apartment is only a block away from Chan’s, and thus he walks the same way to the school as him. Somehow, his lectures start at the same time as his do three days a week. Even when their meetings aren’t accidental, Jeonghan invites him to college quizzes, to hang out between their lectures, to study together when they both have deadlines.

“I mean, I’m flattered,” he says, throwing his bag down beside his bedroom door. Seungkwan does the same, shuts the door behind him, and then flops onto Chan’s bed. “But I just don’t get it! He’s in his final year, he should have loads of friends and a bunch of work, but instead he just hangs out with me, a first-year from a completely different course—”

“Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“Sounds like you’ve gained yourself another stalker.”

“Urgh.” Chan rolls his eyes, lying down on his back next to Seungkwan. “It’s not like that. He’s nice. We’re friends. It’s just a lot, you know, when I was expecting to be hanging out with you and maybe a few people from my course… but instead he’s inviting me to go clubbing with his other final-year friends.”

“You were invited clubbing with third years and you didn’t go?” Seungkwan says, with derision. “What, do you not want to have fun in your life?”

“I had an essay due.”

“You’re doing university wrong.”

“No, I’m not. I do have ambition to pass my assignments, you know.” He rolls over onto his front and props himself up on his elbows to look down at Seungkwan. “What about you? You meet anyone exciting so far?”

Seungkwan’s eyes are half closed, and Chan jostles his arm to keep him awake. Seungkwan groans back at him. “I dunno. Some people. No one quite as intense as your Jeonghan.”

Chan stays silent for a minute, which tips Seungkwan off quickly. He raises his head to look at him. “What is it?”

He lies on his back, staring up at his mottled ceiling. “I like Jeonghan. He’s nice, and funny, and…. I want to hang out with him. But it makes me nervous that he might be interested in me.”

“What’s so bad about that?” Seungkwan props himself up on one elbow. “I’ve seen his instagram. He’s a catch.”

“I don’t want to get distracted by anyone. I’m waiting for Wonwoo.”

Seungkwan snorts. “You’re saving yourself?”

Chan shoves at him. “Not like that, you creep. I just… want to be ready for him to show up.”

Seungkwan shakes his head at him. “Are you stupid or something? You don’t even know when you’ll meet Wonwoo. He could burst in any minute now, sweep you off your feet and pay your student debts, or you could be waiting another ten or twenty years, and you could be nearly thirty and still a virgin, while he’s an experienced adult who has no clue who you are—”

“Yeah, alright, I get the picture,” he grouches. “Though it won’t be that long. He’s been in his twenties for most of the visits, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, yeah. Point is, you’re not doing anyone any favours if you shove away potential boyfriends for the sake of your mysterious disappearing man.”

“I don’t know. I already like Wonwoo. It would be leading Jeonghan on, wouldn’t it? If I show an interest in him?”

“You think too much, Lee Chan. Grab a hot boyfriend! Deal with Wonwoo when he shows up!”

Chan sits up, rolling his shoulders. “I’m happy being his friend, right now. You never know, after all—maybe he really is my stalker. Can’t be too careful.”

Seungkwan sits up too, affronted. “Hey, don’t use my own words against me! I’ve changed my mind! You could be beautiful together!”

“Thanks for your input,” he says, pulling his laptop from his bag. “Did you come here to work, or to help direct my sex life?”

“I know which one is more interesting.”

“Work it is, then,” Chan says pointedly, trying to push Jeonghan from his mind.

-

It doesn’t last very long. He meets Jeonghan on his way to school again, as he always does, no matter how early or late he leaves for his class.

“Chan!” he calls, only a few metres behind when he reaches the bend that connects their two streets.

“Hyung!” he says, waving to him. “Good morning!”

“It’s not that good,” Jeonghan says into his coffee, coat zipped right up to his chin. “You should’ve brought a better coat. It’s due to rain later.”

“Is it?” he says, looking up at the sky. It’s chilly, sure, but the forecast had said clear skies.

“Yeah,” Jeonghan says, breathy, as if it’s a laugh. “You still have time to run back for your coat, I think.”

“It’s okay. I’ll take my bets.”

Jeonghan clucks his tongue. “You haven’t learned yet, Chan? I’m always right, you know.”

He’s not sure about being always right, but on this occasion, he has to admit Jeonghan had the right idea. By the time his lessons are finished, it’s pouring it down something torrential. He’s weighing up his options whilst waiting to meet Jeonghan, whether he makes a run home now or if he should wait it out for a few hours. It doesn’t take long for him to spot Jeonghan pushing his way through the stream of students, smiling when he sees Chan standing there, waiting for him.

It turns wry and knowing when he sees the state of the weather outside. “I told you so.”

“You sure did,” Chan says, shrugging his bag further onto his shoulder and moving to walk beside him down the corridor. “Are you going to make a run back home?”

“I could, since I’m wearing an appropriate coat.”

Chan suppresses a smile. “You’ll have to give me a better heads up next time, oh mighty weather god.”

“I sure will. What will you do?”

“I should stay here anyway, I think. Get some practise in.”

“Really?”

“I have an individual routine coming up for an assessment. I can book one of the practise studios.” They reach the building doors. The dance block isn’t too far from here— he only has to put his hood up and run across the way. No problem.

“Could I come and watch?”

He looks back at Jeonghan. There’s no joke in his voice, only curiosity. “You want to sit and watch me practise for a few hours?”

“I’d like to see you dance. It doesn’t have to be for the whole time.”

He shrugs. Why not? “Sure. You ready to run?”

Jeonghan pulls his own hood up, and steps forward, causing the automatic doors to slide apart, rain bouncing from the stone floor and hitting them before they even step outside. “Are you?”

Chan grins and steps out, hands on his head, and begins to run. He can hear Jeonghan’s steps behind him, but not much else, the rain loud in his ears and obscuring his vision. He follows his gut, mostly, looking down at the paving stones to avoid puddles, checking back once to make sure Jeonghan’s still there. Nearly trips up the building steps because of it. Smooth, Chan.

Once they make it inside, he instinctively shakes his hair dry, because his hoodie hadn’t done much to protect him from the downpour. Obviously.

“I’ve never been in this building,” Jeonghan remarks, pushing his own hood back, hair still dry underneath. “It’s cleaner than the history department.”

Chan leads the way down the corridor towards the studios. Some are full of rehearsing dancers, and they pass teams and individuals practising, muted thudding bass and tinny ballet music seeping through the doors. “Yeah. Dance students have a general sense of respect, you know?”

“I would protest, but you’re right. History students are a disaster.”

“Hey, I’m not saying dance students aren’t total human disasters too, but discipline is in our subject. We know respect well. Humanities students, in my experience, prefer being reckless and ridiculous.”

“You think I’m reckless? Oh, Chan, you do flatter me.”

Chan scribbles his name on the sign-up sheet outside an empty studio, and pushes the door open to a blissfully quiet room. “You’re one of the good ones. You do your essays by day, go crazy with your friends by night. It’s a good balance.”

“No, tell me I’m reckless again. I like that better than being called good.”

Chan shoots him a disbelieving look as he pulls his hoodie off. “You’d rather be the sort of person the University has blacklisted for destruction of property for making a mess on a public bus?”

“That’s more interesting than being a goodie-two-shoes student.”

“That sort of thing will only get you expelled, eventually.”

Jeonghan shrugs, sitting by a mirror and only bothering to slide his coat down his shoulders. “A more exciting story to tell, though.”

The conversation trails off, Chan more invested in digging for his sweatpants in his bag. On finding them he pulls his jeans off without hesitation, throwing them at Jeonghan’s face.

“Hey!”

He laughs and pulls the sweatpants on. “Put them on the heater for me? They’re soaked through.”

“I didn’t come here to be your personal assistant,” Jeonghan grumbles, but stands up again anyway. “My limbs aren’t up for all this movement, Channie.”

“You’re twenty-two, not seventy-two. I’m going to be doing a lot more moving than you are soon, I promise.” He hooks his phone up to the sound system, flicking through until he finds the right song. “You’re going to get sick of this in about ten minutes, you know. Dance practise is mostly just going through the same sequence over and over until I have it down.”

“I’ll watch for ten minutes, then, and make my escape. Are you going to keep me waiting any longer to get to the fun stuff?”

“Alright.” The song blasts up, something heavy and loud, all bass and electronica that resonates through the room. It makes it easy to get right into it, to slip into his own skin, to dance the way he knows well.

It’s easy to forget Jeonghan is there, really. He’s never been nervous to show off new dances, to his parents, to Seungkwan, to anyone who will pay attention, always eager to have constructive criticism and a first impression from an outside pair of eyes. So he rolls with it, lets the music fill his veins, charge his moves, one, two, three, and the world is his, the floor is his, he can bounce and kick and spin until the music ends. He’s alive.

He knows the choreography well enough; he just needs to make his moves perfect. The first run is the most important one, so he gives it his all, power in his movements and finesse in every beat his body hits. He watches himself in the mirror, until he doesn’t, until he focuses more on feeling the moves more than seeing them. Channels his love into it. Wants to show Jeonghan the real him, right up until the song ends.

When the song starts to play again he jogs over to the sound system to stop it. “What do you think?” he asks, putting his hands on his hips, breathing faster now. “I need to work on that part in the middle, I keep messing up the steps, and I’m thinking of changing the choreo near the end—it’s too much, I want something more subtle. And I need to put some popping in there somewhere. It’ll help me pick up marks.”

Jeonghan, for the first time in the short time he’s known him, doesn’t have an answer on the tip of his tongue. He shakes his head, and laughs a little, sounding surprised. “It was… wow, you’re great. I don’t know much about dance, but you looked amazing. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

He beams, feeling far too pleased for his own good. “Thanks. That was the idea. You act like you’ve never seen someone dance before, though.”

“I’ve never seen someone dance like that.” He says it with the standard dose of Jeonghan charisma, but there’s no joke in his tone. The sincerity makes him a little shy, and he waves him away, shuffles away again to go back to the sound system.

“Please. I’m still learning.”

“Aren’t we all? You can be still be learning even if you’re amazing at what you do.”

He rests his weight against the speaker. “Thanks, Hyung. But everyone on my course is amazing. I need to go over it until I’m the best I can be. If you want to take off, I won’t mind. I’ll be here for a while longer yet.”

Jeonghan shakes his head, eyes never leaving Chan. “I’ll stay for a while, if that’s okay. You look better than the storm out there does.”

He smiles, ducks his head. “Alright.”

When they leave the dance block later that night, the rain has completely stopped. Jeonghan walks him all the way home, and blows him a kiss goodnight at his apartment door.

He doesn’t know what to do with the way his breath catches at that.

-

He’s awoken in the middle of the night by a thudding noise in the dark of his room, and then the sound of heavy breathing. Lying in bed, he remains completely still, listening to every movement. He’d heard that student apartments sometimes get burgled around here, and he doesn’t know how to safely deal with that—does he spring up, show he’s awake, try and scare them off? Stay still and hope they’ll leave? But he can’t let them take his laptop, he needs it, he wouldn’t be able to afford another—

“Shit,” a voice hisses, accompanying the noise of bare feet moving across the floor.

“Wonwoo!” he exclaims into the dark, sitting up and feeling around for his bedside lamp. “God, you scared the life out of me—”

“Don’t turn the light on!” Wonwoo says hurriedly. Then comes the sound of him knocking into the corner of the bed. “Ow!”

“What are you doing?” he asks, hand stilling on the lamp switch.

“I’m naked! Hang on!”

“What?” he says through a laugh. Wonwoo, somehow navigating the darkness of the room towards his wardrobe, opens the black mass of the wardrobe door in the dark, silhouetted by the little light coming through his window.

“It was night for me too, before I jumped,” he says, over the sound of clothes sliding from his hanger. “You’re too innocent to see me naked.”

“I’m fully grown now,” he says, a smile creeping into his voice. “I don’t mind things like that, you know.” His finger slips, and he turns the lamp on just in time to see Wonwoo pulling one of his t-shirts over his head, loose pair of sweatpants already tied at his waist.

He shuts the wardrobe door and looks over, scandalised. “Lee Chan!”

“What! It’s not like I saw anything!”

“You could’ve!” he says, sitting down on the edge of his bed. His skin looks smooth, covered in a slight sheen of sweat, and his hair is rumpled and messy. Cheeks slightly pink. For the first time in one of his visits to Chan, he doesn’t have his round glasses on. “This could’ve been very inappropriate.”

“But it wasn’t. There’s just me here, and it’s the middle of the night.” He scoots closer to him. Seeing him again is like a dream come true—it feels like so long since they went to the funfair together. “Were you sleeping just now? Do you sleep naked in the future?”

Wonwoo narrows his eyes at him. “Don’t try to get spoilers out of me!”

“I would never!” he grins. “Were you with anyone?”

“That is none of your business!”

“Isn’t it?”

Wonwoo just looks back at him. He looks beautiful in this half-light, and the sight brings all his high school convictions rushing back. He knows Wonwoo is his—or he will be, in the future. Sitting in front of him like this, stretching one of Chan’s favourite shirts at the shoulders, he can tell that this is the life ahead of him. It must be.

Wonwoo brings his feet up on the bed, sits cross legged on his mattress. Chan bunches some of his bedsheets up and around him, draped across his back so they’re both sat under the covers. “What point are you at now?” he asks. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be nineteen in a few weeks. We still haven’t met yet, properly.”

Wonwoo laughs. “You’re awfully forward to someone you’ve never met before, then.”

“I’ve met you plenty! It’s you who hasn’t met me,” he pauses, watches Wonwoo’s eyes shine in the low light. “I can’t wait,” he confesses. “To meet you properly. It feels like I’m waiting around to understand what you mean.”

“Don’t wait around too much. You’ve got plenty of other things to be working out for yourself.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.” He puts his hand over Chan’s on the bed. “I’m trusting you to be the one to pull everything together. I’m pretty clueless at this point in time.”

Chan turns his hand over on the bed so that he can rest Wonwoo’s hand on his own. It makes his heart jump—his skin is soft, and his hand is big. He could intertwine their fingers, and Wonwoo would probably let him. “It’s hard to pull things together when I know so little about you.”

Wonwoo smiles at him, soft in the dim room. “It’ll work out, I promise. What have you been wondering about?” He runs his fingertips over the palm of Chan’s hand, skittering touches, not quite there.

“I’ve been wondering why you’ve never appeared to me as an old man before.” It’s not what he means to say. It’s a bit morbid to bring up, really, but it’s been on his mind since Seungkwan mentioned an older Wonwoo the other day. “Maybe they’ll happen to me later, but… you’ve never been all that old in your visits so far. I can’t help but wonder why you don’t time travel past your mid-twenties.”

Wonwoo’s fingers curl up, taking his hand properly. “You’re wondering that even now?”

“Amongst other things.”

He nods, easy countenance lowered. “Yeah. We’re still trying to figure things out too, but I don’t have all the answers. Don’t worry about that yet, though. You’re in university! New friends, new studies. Don’t look too far ahead yet.”

“Don’t?”

“Yeah. You’ll tie yourself in knots. Focus on where you are now, alright?”

“I can’t help it. I keep overthinking everything I do, whether or not it’ll lead me to you.”

He pulls a face at that, squeezes Chan’s hand quickly. “I’m sorry to do that to you. There’s a lot more to your life than waiting for me to appear, you know. Please don’t get too caught up in this whole thing.”

“How can I not? You’re amazing.” He flushes even as he says it, but it’s kind of worth it for the way a smile tugs at Wonwoo’s lips.

“Thanks. You’re pretty amazing too, you know.”

“I’m not the time travelling man here, Hyung.”

“No, you’re the one who puts up with the time travelling man. I’ve heard from my mother that it takes a lot of strong will.”

“Yeah, I guess I am pretty great.” He grins to himself. “Hey, Hyung?”

“Yeah?”

“Before you came here, we were having a good time in bed, right?”

Wonwoo’s mouth parts in surprise, but he only sees it for half a second before he disappears completely, leaving the bed sheets to drop into his space.

“Damn it,” he says, half as a laugh. He’d been hoping to know the answer to that one. That’s alright. If his theory is correct, he’ll be able to look forward to in the future.

For now, he’ll savour the short moments he has with Wonwoo. He switches off his lamp and curls back under his covers, holding in his mind the image of Wonwoo wearing his clothes. Known, yet unknown. His wonderful appearing man.

-

When he sees Jeonghan the next day, he’s still buzzed on the Wonwoo visit.

“Good morning!” he practically sing-songs when Jeonghan joins him where the roads meet, as usual.

“You’re in a good mood today,” he remarks, pulling his coat closer around him against the Seoul cold. “Have good dreams?”

“Something like that,” he smiles. “Life is just good, isn’t it?”

“Speak for yourself, first-year. I can’t remember the last time I did something fun. I feel like I’ve been slowly burning my thesis into my retinas over the last few weeks.”

“Didn’t you go to a society social just last week?”

“Yeah, and it was no fun at all. You weren’t there.”

He giggles at the compliment. “Then let’s go out somewhere! Do you want to see the new Marvel movie?”

“Ah, I’m not a fan of superhero movies. How about that new historical movie?”

“You’re kidding me?”

“Absolutely not! It’s not wasting time if it’s conductive to my degree.”

“You’re not even studying the Joseon era!”

“It’s close enough,” he says, waving him away. “After your last lecture today? I’ll pick you up outside your room. We’ll go for food and then the movie.”

“Sure!”

“Alright,” Jeonghan says, with a wink. “It’s a date.”

And like that, his heart sinks in his chest. Ah. Jeonghan. A date.

He keeps up with their easy chatter until they reach the school and part ways, and only then does he allow himself to go into full panic mode. A date. Jeonghan said the word date.

It was probably meant in a friendly way. Right? But Chan had been the one to suggest the movie first, so maybe Jeonghan was getting the wrong impression from him. But he’d only suggested it to cheer Jeonghan up! He’d been complaining about socialising, and then he’d said that he’d missed Chan at the social event… and….

Oh, God. Has he just signed himself up for a date? He should’ve asked him to clarify. They’re good friends now; he could’ve asked him without it being weird. Right? Unless it is a date. In which case he would’ve made Jeonghan feel bad. But now he feels bad! He wasn’t ready to commit to a date, hadn’t even been thinking about it like that when he’d said it.

Despite all the connotations, though, he can’t help the nervous excitement buzzing under his skin. He wants to go on a date with Jeonghan. He’s excited for it, and that’s the worst part. He feels like he can’t trust his own heart, can’t actually figure out what it is he wants. He wants to go on a date with Jeonghan. He doesn’t want to mess things up with Wonwoo. He hasn’t met Wonwoo yet—not properly—and Wonwoo had told him only last night to focus on himself. He can date Jeonghan. But should he? When he has feelings for someone else at the same time?

Someone he hasn’t met yet?

He drops down into his lecture seat, waiting for the professor to start talking so that he can zone out and panic about this date for the rest of the hour. He’ll just go on the date. It makes sense, right? He can explain things to Jeonghan if it goes further than he’d like. He just has to tell him that he’s already set his heart on the time travelling man who’s been appearing in his life in short bursts ever since his childhood.

Right. No problem.


	2. Chapter 2

They eat out at a nice place, more expensive than he would usually go to, and it puts his heart in his mouth when Jeonghan insists on paying for the full meal. Hyung duty, he says, but it feels a lot like boyfriend duty, or first date duty. Because they’re on a _date_. How did he let this happen?

In turn, he buys them both their tickets and popcorn, because he refuses to let Jeonghan take the burden of paying for the whole evening. Jeonghan smiles at him for it, like he’s done something wonderfully chivalrous. Damn it.

The movie begins slowly. There’s a lead male, his best friend, his love interest. He’s searching for a lookalike to take his place—he wonders how historically accurate this movie is. The kingdom is in peril. He isn’t all that into it, until he is, until there’s a poisoning drama and a plot to kill the king—and then he reaches for his drink, knocks hands with Jeonghan on the armrest, glances over in surprise. He’d forgotten where he was. Jeonghan just smiles at him, squeezes his hand once, then lets him grab his drink. Probably a gesture to mean, _it’s okay_. He shouldn’t stress over it.

Except now he’s thinking about it all over again. He really likes Jeonghan. His heart starts tripping over itself as he sits here in the dark, sneaking glances at him under the lights of the big screen. If he were a normal guy, this would be a no brainer—handsome final-year asks you out, you say yes, gladly! Go for cute dates, make out, have a healthy sex life. Be in a happy relationship. Maybe fall in love.

Wonwoo is the problem. The anomaly, really—one extraneous factor in his life, the barrier around the fact that he should be dating freely, except he feels like he can’t. He likes Jeonghan a lot, but he can’t stop thinking about having Wonwoo appear in his room last night; the intimacy of it, the calm. He wants more of that. He can’t have both Wonwoo and Jeonghan, and it would be unfair to both of them to pretend otherwise.

He settles it in his mind, then, that he’ll explain things to Jeonghan after this. He’ll say he doesn’t have feelings for him—that’s a lie, but he’ll say it anyway—and that they’re better as friends. It’s the right thing to do.

His will immediately crumbles when they step outside the building, and he remarks, “Oh, it’s cold out now!” and Jeonghan takes his hand, holds it, and slips it into his own pocket to get the benefit of the hot pack there. He can’t bear to pull away, not with the way the kindness of it warms him up from the inside and out. In the cold night air, their breath clouds in front of them.

“Worth coming to see it, though,” Jeonghan says as they set off in the direction of home. “The movie was really good!”

“I-it was!” he stammers, finding his rhythm beside Jeonghan, hand still in his pocket. “It was way better than I thought it would be. I had popcorn going soft in my mouth during that end scene—it was so tense, I didn’t want to move.”

“Right! I was the same. Lee Byunghun was so good.”

They walk quickly, slightly out of breath, focusing on getting back to the warmth of home. He can work with that; he’ll just bring Jeonghan into the warmth for a minute, sit him down, explain everything. He resolutely ignores the butterflies that spring up at the thought of Jeonghan in his room.

They reach Chan’s building first, and when they’re approaching the front door, he says, “Do you want to come in for a minute?”

“Sure.” Jeonghan is slightly out of breath, but he can still hear the pleased tone underneath it. He’s known Jeonghan long enough to understand his tone of voice, now, and this one means he’s satisfied. He heart clenches, hard.

They take the stairs in breathless quiet, their footsteps the only movement in the building. When he unlocks the door to his apartment, that’s quiet and dark too, so they move through quietly, not wanting to bother his flatmates. He pushes through his own bedroom door, keeping it open for Jeonghan to follow, and lets it fall closed behind them. Stays stood by the door, slowly taking his coat off. He doesn’t know how to begin.

“Do you want a drink or anything?”

“Chan?”

He turns around. “Yeah?”

“Come over here.”

Jeonghan has taken a seat on the edge of his bed, leaning back on his hands, coat abandoned on the floor. He’s practically glowing, partially with the sudden change in temperature, partially with his easy mood from their evening together.

“Hyung,” he says, shuffling over to the bed and sitting down delicately, like they aren’t his own sheets to rumple. “I have something to tell you.”

“Yeah?” Jeonghan asks, shuffling closer to him.

“I…I think you…”

Jeonghan lifts a hand from the bed and leans over, running a hand through Chan’s hair and settling his hand on the side of his face. “Yes?”

“Well...” he murmurs, looking down at Jeonghan’s mouth. He’s lost track of his sentence. What was he saying? Jeonghan smells really good, all fresh and fruity despite the brisk walk home… and his face is right there…

He closes the gap between them without thinking, Jeonghan’s hand on his head guiding their mouths together perfectly. It’s his first kiss, and he can feel it in the way his chest tingles, the way his mind goes blank on contact. He’s kissing Jeonghan, and it’s good. Really good. Oh, God.

He pulls back carefully. “Hyung—”

“Mm?” Jeonghan says, before promptly leaning in and kissing him again, more open-mouthed this time, and he can’t help but keen into it. Jeonghan is so warm, so real. He’s here, ready and willing to kiss Chan, and he really, really likes it—it’s hard to convince himself to stop. Wonwoo seems a million miles away. Why did he think this was a bad idea again?

Jeonghan’s hand moves down to his shoulder, pushing against it gently, and it’s all too easy to lean down onto his back, Jeonghan’s kisses pressing him into the bed. There’s a hand running down his side, reaching under his shirt, and the contact of skin on skin feels like electricity. Jeonghan is half hovering over him, a hand splayed over his stomach, making the butterflies there dance.

When they part again, Chan looks up at him, feeling slightly dazed. “Hyung…”

“Yes, Channie?”

He needs to tell him. He can’t lead him on. “I had a really nice night.” Damn it.

“Me too,” he says. His long hair, falling down onto Chan’s face, is tickling a part of his cheek.

“I’d like to do this again.” God, he’s terrible at this.

Thankfully, Jeonghan can tell there’s something off. “What is it?”

“What’s what?”

“What’s on your mind? We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, you know.”

“I know,” he says, though it’s nice to hear it anyway. “It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

Chan makes to sit up again, and Jeonghan backs up to give him space. “I really like you. But I feel really guilty about all this, because I like someone else too.”

Jeonghan sits back at that, studying him. His smile fades a little, but he seems more surprised than upset. “Really? Is that where you’ve been all evening?” He gives the side of Chan’s head a gentle knock.

He wrinkles his nose. “Have I been that obvious?”

“A little bit. I was hoping it was just first date nerves.”

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to figure out my feelings, but it’s confusing.”

“Have you kissed this other boy too?”

“No! Well. Not yet. It’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. It’s pretty crazy.”

“You’d be surprised. I have my fair share of crazy.”

“Believe me, this is crazier than any of your crazy. I think I just need time to think about it all.”

Jeonghan looks away, a strange sort of smile on his face. “It’s not often I get rejected, Lee Chan. I really like you, too.”

“I really like you too!” he rushes to say. “That’s the problem! I like you both so much, and I don’t know what to do about it!” His heart is quickly sinking again. He doesn’t want to send Jeonghan away like this. “Hyung—I’d really like to date you, and do more kissing, and movie dates, but—it’s just not fair to either of you when I’m so unsure, I just….”

“It’s okay. I’m glad you told me. I’ll give you space, if that’s what you need.”

He lowers tense shoulders, some of the pressure leaving his chest. Jeonghan is being more understanding than he could’ve hoped for.

“I might be biased, but you should think about the fact that I’ll make out with you again anytime you like, and I’ll be graduating soon, so when I get employed I can spend money on you…”

“Hyung!” he says through a laugh. “You don’t need to pitch yourself. Don’t you think I know you well by now?”

“I thought I knew you pretty well, but I didn’t know I had a love rival until right now.”

“He’s not a love rival!” he whines, as Jeonghan stands from the bed, smile full of mischief.

“Yes, he is. We’re competing for your affection. Not to sway you, but I am willing to fight him to the death for your hand in marriage, old-time style.”

“You got out of breath walking home!” he laughs. “You wouldn’t last five seconds in a fight!”

“You underestimate me. I have my wit.” He picks up his coat and slips it over his shoulders. “Also, it’s the thought that counts. Will I be seeing you tomorrow morning?”

“Wouldn’t miss you for the world.”

Jeonghan pulls his bedroom door open. “I’ll see you then.”

He stands, goes over to the door and puts his hand on the back of it to look up at Jeonghan sweetly. “Thank you for this evening. It was really fun.”

“And to you,” Jeonghan says, standing in the doorway, holding the other side of the door. “Will you tell me one thing before I go?”

“What?”

“What’s his name?”

He only hesitates for a second. “Wonwoo.”

Jeonghan nods. “Goodnight, Chan.”

“Goodnight, Hyung.”

-

He spends the next few days near losing his mind. Instead of listening in class, he writes a list of positives and negatives about Wonwoo and Jeonghan, and then rips it out, because it feels dumb and reductive to put his feelings into factors like _is a good kisser_ and _is a time traveller_ and _I actually know things about him other than the fact that he’s a time traveller_. They’re both such different people that it seems impossible to compare them with what he knows so far. It all comes down to this, anyway—Wonwoo is his future, and he knows that. He’s more or less seen it, with the way Wonwoo knows him so well. Jeonghan is his present, what he can have right now—but at one point or another, that will have to stop. Right?

“Why are you asking me?” Seungkwan says, rubbing his eyes. “I’m not a time travel expert.”

“But you have a good mind for this sort of thing,” he insists, under his breath. They’ll get kicked out if they’re disruptive, so he does some important-looking typing on his keyboard to seem busy. “What do you think? Should I give Jeonghan a shot?”

Seungkwan sighs. “You won’t like what I have to say.”

“Say it anyway. I need input.”

“I think the best choice is to pick no one. Wonwoo is too unknown, and Jeonghan is too known. He’s too close to home when you have this whole other mystery to figure out with Wonwoo. I can tell it’s all too much by how much you’re worrying about it, so just focus on your degree, keep an eye out for your time travel boy. Figure things out when he gets here.”

“But that’s not choosing no one. That’s choosing Wonwoo.”

“But you don’t even know if Wonwoo is in your life like that yet! You’ve totally been making assumptions until now! What if he’s not your future boyfriend? What if he turns out to be, like, your secret uncle or something? And you’re making all these plans that might not even turn out be how you imagine.”

“Ew. Don’t say that. I asked him if we were having sex the last time we met.”

“I’m just saying. You’re thinking about this all very romantically. He could turn out to be your brother’s boyfriend, and you’ll be very embarrassed about that in a few years.”

“So you’re saying I should pick Jeonghan?”

“No. Are you even listening to me? Pick yourself. You’re young, you have time to figure things out. You don’t need all these distracting boys.”

“But I’d be letting Jeonghan slip through my fingers for no reason, then. I really like him, Hyung.” He trails off his sentence to stare at his keyboard pitifully.

Seungkwan groans, looking up at the ceiling. “Listen. I can’t make your decisions for you. You’ve got to go for your gut on this one. I just think you’re running into things too fast, and you should look around before you leap.”

“Your options suck. You’re saying to be alone instead of picking one of the two very handsome men right in front of me. Jeonghan is such a good kisser, Hyung.”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes. “I did say that you wouldn’t like my opinions. Things would be a lot easier if you were normal, no strange time-man attached.”

He begins to save his file on the computer. It’s been five days since their date, and he needs to give Jeonghan an answer. “Yeah, no kidding.”

“Where are you going?”

“Jeonghan’s,” he says, standing. “I know I said we’d study, but I can’t focus. I’m going to go and talk to him.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Thanks. I’m going to need it.”

He walks straight to Jeonghan’s building without giving him a heads up that he’s coming over. He doesn’t even know if he’s home right now, but suddenly he can’t stand the waiting around anymore. He needs to make his decision, and get on the path it takes him.

It’s the right thing to do. He knocks on Jeonghan’s door with determination.

He’s met with the sight of Jeonghan in old pyjamas, skin a little blotchy and hair unbrushed. His breath leaves him for a second.

“Chan?” Jeonghan says, though he doesn’t sound all that surprised. More tired than anything. “Are you alright?” He steps aside to let him through the door, and Chan is met with the sight of a small living space completely cluttered with notes and books.

“No, I just wanted to talk to you,” he says, looking around. “Is this a bad time?”

“It’s okay. I should probably take a break anyway. Do you want anything?” He walks over to the coffee machine and takes out a mug and coffee filter.

“No, I’m okay,” he says, perching up on a barstool as Jeonghan gets to work on his coffee.

“So, what’s up?” Jeonghan asks, leaning against the countertop. Maybe it is a bad time. Jeonghan is visibly tired and distracted, in the middle of his thesis work, it looks like. He’d come by unannounced, only to say that…

“I think we’re better off as friends, Hyung. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to you. You’re really important to me. I like you a lot, but it makes more sense if we stay friends.”

At first, Jeonghan doesn’t say anything. The coffee maker pings behind him, and he turns around to pick up his mug. Takes a very slow sip from it. Places it on the counter, and then leans on it again, looking at Chan. “I don’t want to be bitter or anything, Chan, but I don’t understand. Who is this guy that changed things so fast?”

“He’s a friend. It’s complicated.”

Jeonghan shoots him a look. “I tried to find his social media, you know. Did the standard searches. But you’ve got no one called Wonwoo on anything. And you’re not even dating him, so…. why pull yourself away for someone like that?”

“If I tell you the truth, you’ll think I’m inventing the worst excuse in the world.”

“I told you. You can’t scare me away that easily.” Jeonghan takes another drink from his mug, holding eye contact steadily.

Chan looks back for a minute, hoping he’ll back down, but he knows he’s lost from the start. When Jeonghan wants something, he usually finds a way to get it.

Alright, then.

“Wonwoo is someone who’s been in my life since I was small, but he’s not a childhood friend. He’s been appearing in my life and doing kind things for me. Bought me a toy I wanted, took me to a funfair when I got stood up on a date. He’s kind of like…a guardian angel, or something. He appears for a short while, then disappears again. He told me that it’s because he’s from the future.”

Jeonghan stares, mug gripped in both hands.

“I know it sounds crazy, and believe me, I’ve tried to come up with another explanation. But you should see it, Jeonghan, he’ll come out of nowhere—he was in his twenties when I saw him last week, but he must’ve been the same age as that when I first met him the first time, at six years old. And this one time, I was fifteen, and he appeared in my bedroom, around the same age as me—there’s nothing else that makes sense! I know how it sounds, but I really wouldn’t lie to you about something like this—”

“I believe you.”

“You…” He stops. “Really?”

Jeonghan’s eyes, against all the odds, are bright with the news. Alive. Like his explanation makes complete sense. “I have something to tell you too.”

“What?”

Jeonghan puts his mug down and looks at Chan intently. “If your Wonwoo can travel to the past, then I can see to the future. I know about certain things that will happen, and when I see events, I can change them, or prepare for them.”

It’s Chan’s turn to stare. “Are you serious?”

Jeonghan nods. “For most of my life, I was only seeing my own future. Then, one day last summer, I started seeing yours, too.”

“What?”

“I can see the future in two ways, right? The first is in my dreams. The first time I dreamed of you, you were in the library, looking for a book on dance. I made sure to go and get that book out every day once term started, so that I could talk to you when you came along. I wondered if you had the same ability as me, and if you would recognise me too. You didn’t, so I knew there had to be another reason I was seeing you in my future.

“The second way I can tell the future by instinct. I have really good gut feelings about good or bad things that are about to happen, usually to me—but I started getting them for you, too. I had a feeling you would knock on my door today, and I could tell you were going to make an important decision as soon as you walked in. I suppose that was this.” He rests his elbows on the counter, eyes unfocused. “So it’s not you who’s the same. It’s Wonwoo.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you. He’s my love rival. You’ve been seeing him in your future, but guess what—I’ve been seeing you in my future, too. I’ve had dreams about us that must be from years in the future. We’re together in all of them.” He breathes in, refocuses back on Chan’s face. “There must be something special about you. There has to be a reason we both have these abilities, and they’re all tied up in your life.”

Chan breathes in, breathes out. He hasn’t expected to be the one on the receiving end of a bombshell today. “You can really see into the future?”

“Yes,” Jeonghan says, emphasis heavy. There’s a light in his eyes, like things are piecing themselves together, starting to make sense.

He only feels thrown off. “So… you only approached me because of your dream?”

Jeonghan’s face turns softer. “At first, yes. But getting to know you has been the best thing I’ve done whilst I’ve been studying here, baby. I’m really glad my abilities led me to you.”

“And…you’ve seen our future. You’ve seen us, together?”

“Yes, thought not every future I see happens, and I can alter it if I act against it enough. It’s why I was surprised when you seemed unsure, the other day—I’ve been playing into everything that’s been happening, because I want that future just as it is. Wonwoo is an unexpected factor, I suppose.”

He swallows down the strange feeling in his throat. It kind of hurts, thinking that their whole relationship was pre-planned, or that Jeonghan had another motive behind all this, but that would be hypocritical of him to say. It’s the same approach he’s had in waiting for Wonwoo, all this time. It makes him start to understand Seungkwan’s wariness about him waiting around for a pre-seen future. “Do you think if you hadn’t had those dreams, that we would still feel like this?”

Jeonghan immediately rounds the countertop to stand directly in front of Chan, cupping his face in his hands. His cheeks still feel cold from the outside, and they welcome the warmth of Jeonghan’s hands.

“Of course. I told you, my dreams don’t dictate how things will go. I wanted to find out why you started appearing in them, but I didn’t know how special you really are until we became friends.” He kisses Chan’s forehead, wraps his arms around him in a hug. Chan leans into it, resting his face on Jeonghan’s shoulder. “It doesn’t change anything about how I feel. You can’t help but appear in my dreams in the same way Wonwoo can’t help but appear in your life, I expect.”

He nods. “He told me once that he’d only ever appeared in his own timeline before. He didn’t know why he’d appeared in my room when we’d never even met. From his perspective, at least.”

Jeonghan pulls out from the hug, but leaves his hands on Chan’s shoulders. “Weird. We do sound alike.”

“Do you think you’re related or something?”

“I’ve never heard of the guy. Unless one of my aunties had a secret baby.”

“It can’t be a coincidence. You can both do unbelievable things with time, and you both happen to be seeing parts of my life too?”

Jeonghan leans back against the counter again, sliding his hands down to hold Chan’s. “Strange, isn’t it? Maybe Wonwoo will have more answers for us. Do you know when you’ll meet him?”

“I don’t know. I think it must be soon, though.”

“It’s a waiting game, then. He’ll change things for us both, I expect.”

“Yeah. I hope he’ll know something about all this.”

Jeonghan nods, shooting him a sideways look. “Has all this changed your mind?”

“About what?”

“Us?” His thumb smooths over the skin of Chan’s hand. “I don’t mind waiting for you to think on things a little longer. I do mind losing you to a guy you haven’t even met yet.”

Despite himself, he cracks a grin. “Yeah, it does change things. We should probably talk to Wonwoo about all of this before we do anything rash.”

“Let’s hope he comes along soon. I’m not patient.”

“You’ve been patient with me.”

“Yeah, because it’s you. I won’t be lenient for my love rival.”

Chan hits his arm playfully. “Have you ever seen him before in your dreams? Tall, round glasses, kinda skinny?”

“No, I’ve only ever seen myself. And, starting six months ago, you.”

“And what have you seen about me?” he asks, leaning in a little.

Jeonghan raises an eyebrow at him. “I’m not giving away the good bits. If I tell you, it might stop it from happening.”

“Why would I stop good things from happening? Believe it or not, a happy future sounds amazing.”

Jeonghan tugs at his hand a little, teasing. “Let’s see how you feel with Wonwoo in the picture.”

“I would never give you up if I had the choice, you know,” he says, pulling his hand right back so that Jeonghan enters his space again. “I wish I wasn’t in a position like this. I want you in my life for as long as possible.”

“Really?”

“Really. You’re special to me.”

Jeonghan wavers in place like he wants to lean in again. He looks at Chan’s lips briefly. “Good. I am pretty special.”

He smiles, looks away from him to avoid blushing. Special indeed.

-

Jeonghan’s confession, as unexpected as it had been, only brings them closer together. He comes to more of his performances and practises, just to sit in and be close by, as if Wonwoo might drop out of the sky at any second and he wants to be there to see it. They study together at Jeonghan’s apartment more often, trying to unravel their mystery in between assignments. Jeonghan talks about his recent dreams, about how he’s been this way since he was a young child. Chan tells him about all his Wonwoo encounters, and it’s freeing to be able to tell the truth to someone other than Seungkwan. The scour the internet for him as best they can, and come up with nothing.

It’s a shock, then, when Wonwoo walks right into their hands only a few weeks later.

It’s Jeonghan’s roommate, Seungcheol, who they have to thank. He texts ahead, _friend coming over but im still 30 mins out, pls let him in from the cold._ When the knock comes on the door, Jeonghan eyes it up.

“Aren’t you going to let him in?” Chan asks, flipping through his choreography sketches.

“I would, but I’m kind of buried in notes,” he says.

“You could come up with a better excuse.”

“I’m serious! If I stand now, I’ll lose track of where I’m at.”

He sighs, putting aside his own notepad and standing to do it himself. “And is it necessary to have all your notes spread around you like that?” It’s something impressive, like a pattern of peacock’s feathers made of highlighter ink. Terribly inconvenient for anyone trying to get through the apartment, though.

“Yes,” he insists. “It’s the only way I can think about it all at once.”

He reaches the front door, and unlatches the catch. Swings it open, mouth ready to apologise, and then…

Wonwoo looks up from his phone.

His jaw goes slack.

“Sorry, is this Cheol’s place?” he says, gesturing to the flat. Completely unaware.

He stares for a few seconds, or maybe a few hours. The question flies over his head. “Wonwoo?”

The rush of blood in his ears almost blocks out the answer. “Yeah, that’s me. Sorry I’m here so early. I’ll just wait in Hyung’s room.”

He steps back into the apartment to let him pass, staring as he does. Wonwoo doesn’t recognise him. Not at all?

“This is Wonwoo?” Jeonghan asks, on his feet, papers scattered around him.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says, looking between them nervously at the intensity in the room. “Are you guys Seungcheol’s flatmates?”

Jeonghan’s look is piercing. Chan feels like he might fall over. “I am, but Chan knows you another way.”

Wonwoo turns to him, looking unnerved under their attention. Chan desperately searches for his tongue. It’s hard to believe this is happening. “Do you remember me?” he blurts out.

Wonwoo blinks at him. “No. Should I?”

“I—well—maybe. Do you remember being about sixteen years old, and being caught in a thunderstorm?”

Wonwoo squints at him. “What?”

He steps closer. He’s half temped to reach out, feel him, make sure he’s really here. “Do you remember jumping through time and finding yourself in a teenager’s bedroom, soaking wet, in the middle of a heatwave?”

Wonwoo stills in place, staring at him. “How do you know about that?”

“It was my bedroom. You used my towel, told me you were a time traveller, and then disappeared again.”

Wonwoo turns his full body to face him, attention caught. His voice catches in his throat before he talks. “After the storm, I caught a fever. I don’t remember much of those few days, but I knew I’d jumped somewhere, because I had a towel with me that wasn’t familiar at all.”

His heart falls. “You don’t remember me?”

Wonwoo shakes his head. “How is it possible I jumped to your bedroom? I’ve only ever travelled into my own timeline before.”

“I promise you, it’s the truth. How else could I know about your ability? It wasn’t even the first time, for me. You appear in my childhood a few times.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I don’t know why. We were hoping you’d have answers, actually.”

Wonwoo turns back to Jeonghan, who’s watching their exchange with sharp eyes. “Do I appear in your life too?”

“No. I’m here because I can see the future.”

“Oh,” Wonwoo says. “Wow.”

“I can see visions of Chan’s future, and you’ve seen scenes from his past. We’re kind of…” Chan makes an imploring face behind Wonwoo’s back, begging him not to say _love rivals_. “Opposites. Or a matched pair, depending on how you look at it.”

“You’re serious? You can see the future?”

“Is it that surprising for you, time traveller?”

“Have you seen my future?”

“Nope. Just myself and Chan.”

Wonwoo turns back to Chan. “So we’re both affected by… you?”

“It seems that way,” Chan says, a little faint.

“You really had no idea about all this?” Jeonghan asks, tone only slightly accusatory.

“No. I had no idea anyone besides my family knew about my condition.”

“When did it start?” Jeonghan asks, stepping out of his pile of notes to close in on him. “How often does it happen? Can you choose to do it? We need to know everything. Your condition affects all of us, now.”

“Hyung,” Chan says, shooting him a look. If this is a lot for him, he can only imagine how overwhelmed Wonwoo must feel.

“It’s okay,” Wonwoo says, bemused. “I’ve never had anyone to talk with about it before. Do you promise you won’t report me to the government, or something?”

“Who do you think we are?” Jeonghan asks.

“Can’t be too careful,” he shrugs. “This isn’t something you hear about on the day-to-day, is it?”

“You don’t know anyone else like you?” Chan asks.

“No. Though I don’t exactly go around taking a survey.”

“And you’ve always been like this?”

“For as long as I can remember. My mom told me that, when I was a baby, I would disappear for short amounts of time when I cried, travelling a few minutes into the future. By the time I had reappeared and she had settled me down, my past self would appear, screaming, and set me off again.”

“I bet she thought she’d given birth to a demon,” Jeonghan remarks.

“Gave her a heart attack the first time it happened, apparently.”

“Good thing she’s not religious, or you might’ve been taken for an exorcism right there.”

“So it happens when you cry?” Chan asks.

“We’ve figured out that it’s when I feel an intense emotion, or something really sudden. Joy, anger, grief. Fear and anxiety too. It makes me turn up somewhere else for a little while; sometimes big jumps in time, sometimes only to the same day or same place.”

“Can you do it by choice?”

“I don’t think so. Don’t particularly want to, either. It’s not as fun as you’d think.”

“Don’t you want to try? If you had control, you could do some good with your ability,” Jeonghan says.

“Do you have any way to control your visions?”

“No. It’s all random dreams and impulses. But yours is more physical than mine, you might be able to actually navigate where you go.”

“I doubt it. It always feels like I’m being pulled, not like I’m in the driver’s seat.”

“What—” Chan is interrupted by the sound of the front door rattling open. Seungcheol steps through, a pleased smile forming on his face at the sight of them talking together in the living room.

“You guys managed not to scare Wonwoo away while I was gone?” he says, heaving his grocery bags into the kitchenette.

“I would never,” Jeonghan says, at the same time as Wonwoo says,

“You have some strange friends, Hyung.” At Chan’s look of _he doesn’t know_ , he tacks on, “Nice, though. We were just chatting.”

“I bet you’re glad I came to save you,” Seungcheol laughs. “These two are a menace when they’re together.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jeonghan says.

“Give me your number, we need to talk about this some more,” Chan whispers, pulling his phone out. Wonwoo fumbles with it to type in his details.

“I bought loads of pizza if you guys want to eat now. We might not have space in the fridge for it all, actually.”

“I could eat,” Wonwoo says, handing the phone back to Chan. “I think I need my strength.”

Chan slips his phone back into his pocket, a little dizzy. He tries not to stare at Wonwoo in all his glory. Here. Real. “Sure. I could have pizza.”

“Great,” Jeonghan says, watching them with a glint in his eye. “Pizza it is.”

-

He runs straight through their apartment to Seungkwan’s room when he gets back that evening, ready to spill the events of the day. He’s not sure what he needs to do next; take time to process, maybe, or vent Seungkwan until he’s exhausted. He’d love for his head to stop spinning sometime soon, too, so he can properly think about what the hell lies ahead of him, now.

“You need to woo him, of course!” Seungkwan insists.

“Now isn’t the time!” he says, pacing the three feet of floor space in the room. “We’ve been trying to figure out how the three of us are linked! It has to mean something! It’s kind of scary, actually—their abilities are crazy, but I’m so ordinary. Do you think something happens in my future to set off a whole weird chain of time travel events? Maybe I get cursed by a witch, or have an asteroid kill me, or get swallowed up by a black hole—”

“What do witches have to do with time travel?”

“I don’t know! I’m so clueless about all of this, so why is it happening to me?”

“You’re always so obsessed with answers, you know.”

“How can I not be?”

“You just need to be patient. Something will happen to you later, sure, but worrying about it won’t change it. Like I said, whatever is going to happen is fixed in your future because of the Wonwoo in your present. Tearing your hair out over it will only make you upset. How about you take a step back and appreciate the fact that these two hot men are love rivals over you?”

He groans, sitting heavily on Seungkwan’s bed, who wrinkles his nose at him for it. “Don’t you start. Wonwoo barely knows who we are! No one is anyone’s love rival!”

“Not yet! Just you wait until he finds out he won you a stuffed toy on a funfair date!” He pulls a face. “Or, will win you one, in his future. God, you guys have some stuff to work out.”

He laughs despite himself, rolling over to smile up at Seungkwan. “Thank you for listening to me rant all the time. I think I’d go crazy if I had no one to tell about all this.”

Seungkwan leans back on his hands, looking down at him. “Don’t thank me. I thrive on the drama. How is it that all this happens around you?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? But you said I should try and get in Wonwoo’s pants rather than think about that.”

“Well, now that we know he’s not your uncle, it’s a lot more viable. Wait, did you ask him about that?”

Chan punches him in the arm. “Stop saying that! I hate it! He’s barely older than me!”

“Yeah, thank God. Imagine if you’d rejected Jeonghan only to meet a seventy-year-old man when Wonwoo showed up.”

“Stop!” he says through a laugh. “I had good instincts about him!”

“You had no instincts! You were just too stubborn to think of him otherwise!”

“Say what you will!” he declares, standing. “I won’t take this slander!”

“You can’t stop me from knowing you this well, Chan!”

“No! But I can pretend otherwise!” he calls as he backs out of Seungkwan’s room, skipping back to his own room with a smile.

-

Wonwoo and Jeonghan are already on their way over when the baby appears. He’s stood in the kitchen, making ramen and waiting for their arrival, when there’s a small cluttering of something falling from the countertop, and then a surprised cry.

He spins from where he’s stood over the stove and looks around for the source of the noise. There, bundled up in blankets and starting to wail loudly, is a tiny baby on his kitchen counter.

“Oh, shit!” He leaves the stove to go over and pick up the baby, cradling him in his arms. “Why are you here?” he says, starting to rock him a little hastily. “Shh, shh—please don’t cry! Oh, no…” His flatmates are all out, but it wouldn’t do to have neighbours hearing a baby crying in a building meant for students only.

The pot on the stove is starting to boil furiously, and he very carefully turns the heat down whilst keeping the baby Wonwoo cradled a safe arm away from the stove. “You really have your timing, don’t you?” he says, supporting him with both arms again and rocking him gently. Baby Wonwoo only continues to wail, upset by his sudden appearance in a student kitchen.

It’s understandable. Chan would be too.

He’s saved by the sound of the intercom rustling, Jeonghan’s muffled voice whining to be let in, and he slides to the door to buzz them into the building. “Please come quickly!” he says into the intercom. “I’m not ready to be a single parent!”

Jeonghan and Wonwoo appear a minute later at the door. When Chan pulls it open for them, careful to support baby Wonwoo as he does, Jeonghan looks at him with great concern.

“If you’re about to tell me this is your secret baby, I’m leaving,” he says. Wonwoo peers over his shoulder in the doorway.

“I’m not,” he says, moving back to let them in. “It’s Wonwoo, he just showed up a few minutes ago. Here, take him, I have to go and save the ramen.” Jeonghan barely has time to shuffle his shoes off before he receives an armful of whining baby.

“That’s me?” Wonwoo says, shutting the door behind them. “Really?”

“Would I make it up?” he calls back, skidding through the apartment to check on the ramen. It’s still okay, thankfully, the heat turned down low enough to prevent a disaster.

“How do you know it’s Wonwoo?” Jeonghan calls, coming through to the kitchen as he’s serving out a bowl each.

“Do you know of any other magically appearing babies? Here, you can hand him back if you’re hungry.”

They do a fiddly exchange, the baby for the food. Baby Wonwoo is calming somewhat, volume settling down to disappointed hiccups and half-hearted wails as he wriggles in Chan’s grip. “You can start eating, if you like. He’ll probably be gone soon.”

“Why do you think that?” Wonwoo asks, placing his bowl on the kitchen table and watching the two of them curiously.

“Your visits to me aren’t usually that long, and this must be one of your first times doing this time travel thing at all. Isn’t that right?” he asks the baby, offering his finger as a distraction. Baby Wonwoo reaches out for it with his tiny, uncoordinated little fists, making sporadic grabbing motions at him. When he’s successful in wrapping his fingers around Chan’s index finger, he tugs it close, gurgling a little more calmly.

It makes Chan coo at the sight, and Wonwoo grimaces at him. “Can you please stop that?”

“What, would you rather carry on crying? Babies have lungs that could bring down buildings.”

“You’ve never had a baby Wonwoo visit before, right?” Jeonghan says from where he’s halfway through his ramen.

“No, just teenage Wonwoo. It’s weird, too—his last visit was only a few weeks ago. I usually only see you every few years, not this often.”

“Well, the three of us have all met, now. That’s a lot of time-nonsense in one place,” Jeonghan remarks.

“That’s true.” Baby Wonwoo makes an unhappy noise in agreement, and then promptly disappears from Chan’s arms. He wavers slightly with the loss of the weight, and then holds up the single little blanket that was left behind. “Well. That’s that, then. I believe this is yours.”

He hands Wonwoo the blanket, who looks down at it blankly. “Yeah. Thanks.”

He picks up his own ramen from the side and sits beside Jeonghan at the table. Jeonghan sits back in his seat and watches Wonwoo like he’s a fascinating exhibit. “Is this strange for you?”

Wonwoo looks up. “It’s more strange that you two are so calm about all this. It took a lot of my childhood to become adjusted, and you guys act like it’s natural.”

“Believe me, I’ve been adjusting to your ability throughout my own life, too, and Jeonghan has a whole load of his own weird. You’re not that strange to us, Hyung.”

“Sure. The freaks stick together,” Jeonghan says, helpfully.

Wonwoo scoffs gently, placing the blanket to the side and finally picking up his bowl. “Is that why I’m here?”

“You’re here so we can get to know you beyond the whole… you know. Crazy stuff. All the rest of you. Will you tell us?”

“You don’t want to talk about the baby that was just in the room?”

“Babies are boring,” he says. “Nothing to them except crying, and eating, and pooping. You’re a whole person.”

“Wow,” Jeonghan says, sardonically. “You act like the baby isn’t the exact same person.”

“You know what I mean!”

“I’m not very interesting, other than the stuff you already know,” Wonwoo shrugs.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jeonghan says. “Tell us what you do. How do you know Seungcheol?”

“We work together, part time at the Lotte Mart in town. I’m a student at the Uni of Seoul. Are you two both at Kyunghee with him?”

“Yeah. I’m in my first year, and Hyung is in his last. What do you study?”

“Korean Language & Literature, second year. You?”

“I’m a history student, and Chan does dance.”

“Woah. You got into Kyunghee for dance?”

“He’s really good,” Jeonghan says, eyes shining.

“I’m working to be better,” he says, scraping around for the last pieces of ramen and avoiding their eyes. “It’s kind of an intense course.”

“Can I come and see you dance sometime?”

“Of course, anytime! The department loves a willing audience.”

“He has a showcase next Friday,” Jeonghan says. “I think I have a spare ticket.”

“I thought you were going to invite Seungcheol with it?” Chan asks.

“He can buy his own ticket. He’s not the one I’m trying to court.”

“Wait,” Wonwoo says, looking up at Jeonghan. “Court?”

“Please ignore him,” Chan says, pained. He shouldn’t have pushed it.

“I thought you two were dating?” Wonwoo says, and then the air gets a little stiff. He and Jeonghan look at each other. “Or was I totally off the mark…?”

“Well, not really,” he says, rushed. “We were trying to sort everything else out first.”

“Oh, is that what all this is?” Jeonghan says, watching him steadily. “Interesting.”

“You know what I mean,” he says, willing away the blush on his cheeks.

“So…not dating?”

“Yes,” he says, at the same time as Jeonghan says,

“No.”

They look at each other. “It’s complicated,” he says.

“Don’t worry about all that,” Jeonghan says breezily, resting his elbows on the table. “Just come and see Chan dance with me. We’ll all go for tteokbokki afterwards.”

“As a date?” Wonwoo asks.

“Only if you want it to be.”

Wonwoo looks over at Chan, who shrugs, about as bemused as he is. Are three-way dates even a thing? “I’m down for it if you are.”

“Sure,” Wonwoo says. “What’s another thing on the pile of weird new things from the last few days? Meeting a boy from my future, a boy who can see the future, and going on a date with both of them at once.” He laughs. “Sounds great.”

He feels a little bad for Wonwoo; this all must be a lot. Still, nothing could dampen the excitement that fires up through his veins, the happy nerves at the thought of a date with Wonwoo and Jeonghan.

Seeing the two of them at the same time? He hadn’t considered it as a possibility, but this unlocks a whole new possible future for him. He has his work cut out for him.

He can’t wait.

-

He doesn’t see either of them for the next week, because practise hits hard. For this showcase, they’ve been grouped up across the whole course, so he’s doing a performance with students who are all older (and more experienced) than him. It’s a lot of pressure to get it right, to make sure he doesn’t let them down. He doesn’t even go out and greet the two of them before the show, though it’s hard to ignore the bustle of people taking their seats, the urge to go and peek around stage curtains. They’re going over the choreography, again and again, last minute checks even though all four of them know it at a bone-deep level. He doesn’t really mind. They’re perfectionists like that.

It lends to a flawless performance. He hits every move right, is able to lose himself completely in the music. Almost forgets about the audience, away on the adrenaline of performing, the satisfaction that he can keep up with his team on such a difficult routine. He was lucky to be put in a group with such talented senior students; he knows that they’ll be given a great group grade for that performance.

“Chan?” Soonyoung calls from the door, snapping him out of his thoughts. He pauses where he’s packing up his bag.

“Yeah?”

Jeonghan and Wonwoo are at the door, smiling around the doorframe, dressed up and handsome as ever.

“Your friends are here for you,” Soonyoung says, needlessly.

“Thanks,” he says, standing and slinging his bag over his shoulder. He’d brought nice enough clothes to change into, but he can only hope that they don’t mind his slightly sweaty hair. “Are you guys ready to go?”

“Starving,” Jeonghan says. “You must be hungry too, after all that.”

“You bet!”

“You were so good!” Wonwoo says, falling in step with the two of them as they start walking out of the building. “Your dancing is so… wow. The performance was beautiful.”

Chan beams up at him. “You think?”

“I don’t know a thing about dance, and I know you’re really talented.”

“It’s his superpower,” Jeonghan says. “We have the weird time shit, and he can move in ways normal humans can only dream of.”

“I’d much rather have that,” Wonwoo says. “It’s way more aesthetically pleasing.”

The family-owned tteokbokki place is nestled in a street of specialist cuisine places, a quaint little place that Jeonghan must be familiar with after three years of living in Seoul.

“How long have you been dancing?” Wonwoo asks as they take a corner table together.

“My whole life,” he replies, trying to catch a waitress’ eye. He’s ravenous. “My parents are both dancers, and my dad is a dance teacher, so I’ve always been learning it. I want to follow in his footsteps, one day.”

“You’ve got a whole plan and everything? That’s so cool.”

“Will you move back to Iksan to work with him when you graduate?” Jeonghan asks.

“Maybe. He’s actually been talking about starting a branch of his school in Seoul. If he does, I’ll be there every step of the way to help him.”

The waitress finally arrives, and they order plenty of tteokbokki as well as several other side dishes. Wonwoo, despite how lank his frame is, promises he has a big appetite.

“You have a good relationship with your parents, then?” Wonwoo asks.

“Yeah, totally. I love them, and we’ve always been close.”

“Do they know about me?”

“You know, it’s kind of hard to bring up a conversation about a man who’s been following me through time my whole life? So, no. I just told them that I’ve met some guys at uni.”

“Yeah,” he says, pulling a face. “That’s fair.”

At Wonwoo’s request, the table they’ve chosen is in the corner of the room, settled into a little indent in the wall. He says he likes to be as unseen as possible in public, should he make a surprise disappearance. It’s why, when a dishevelled Wonwoo materialises in front of them, backed up to the corner and startled, they’re the only ones to witness him appear. He’s wild-eyed and panicked, clutching at his side as he sways in place; the side of his shirt is soaked in blood.

“Wonwoo?” Chan says, standing up abruptly. He goes to step out from behind the table, to help apply pressure and slow the bleeding, but the younger Wonwoo beside him grabs his hand, keeps him still.

Jeonghan stands up a second after he does, chair scraping back as he looks between the injured Wonwoo and his younger self.

The bloody Wonwoo takes a few breaths in, ragged, looking at each of them around the table.

“It was him all along,” he says, before staggering backwards.

Before he can hit the wall, he’s gone.

Chan gapes at the blank wall, then at Jeonghan, who looks right back at him, wide eyed and afraid.

“Please sit back down,” Wonwoo says quietly, tugging at Chan’s hand. He looks down, and then around them, where others are glancing over. Whilst older Wonwoo was concealed from the rest of the restaurant, their panicked reactions were not, and he slowly sinks back into his seat so as not to draw alarm.

“What the hell was that?” Jeonghan breathes, still standing, looking down at them both in shock.

“Tteokbokki for three?” the waitress behind them says, and Wonwoo smiles up at her. “Yes, please. Thank you.”

“Hyung,” Chan says, patting Jeonghan’s thigh to encourage him to sit down again. “Come on.”

“Aren’t you a little freaked out by that?” Jeonghan hisses as soon as the waitress moves away. “Just how often do you turn up bleeding and handing out ominous warnings?”

“Never,” Wonwoo says, picking up his chopsticks. “But I’m not all that surprised. I always knew my condition would get me into trouble sooner or later. Anxiety makes me jump, but sudden pain does too. It’s not ideal.” His voice is steady, but his hand shakes a little as he clicks the chopsticks together.

“We’ll deal with that as we come to it,” Chan says, trying to reassure them both at once, though his mind is on the red, red shirt that should’ve been white. “Right? And he gave us a warning, at least.”

“When has that happened to you before?” Jeonghan asks, leaning forwards in his chair. “An injury making you jump?”

“I broke my arm once, in middle school. The pain of it took me a year into the future. My future self laughed at me, and told me not to jump down any staircases again.”

“Your future self could’ve been more precise with his warning this time, too,” he mutters.

“Do you think he meant Chan?” Jeonghan asks. “The ‘him’? Who else could be responsible for something that’s related to you over time?”

Wonwoo digs his chopsticks around in the bowl, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my ability, it’s not to fixate on the future, because everything always happens as they’re planned. It can’t be changed, no matter how much you know ahead of time.”

“I have a different experience. When I see things, I can change them.”

“No offense, Hyung,” Wonwoo says, “but it’s not quite the same. You see the future, but by appearing to myself or Chan, I create the future. Whatever I do, it takes me on that path I’ve seen already, because of the very reason that I’ve seen it. It’s a loop.”

“If you think like that, then you definitely won’t be able to change anything. You need to resist that sort of logic.”

Wonwoo shakes his head calmly. “No. It doesn’t change anything. Besides, I don’t mind sticking with this path I’m on. The fact that I appeared back to our first date when I was in a state like that…” He looks at the wall where older Wonwoo had been minutes ago. “Call me overly optimistic, but I think it’s a good sign. It means you guys are important in my future.”

“You’re okay with the path you’re on, even after seeing something like that?” Chan asks.

“Yes. You’ve proved that you’re good people, here to help me.” He smiles at them both, and it genuinely lights up his eyes. “I’d like to stick close to that.”

-

After that, another time-travelling Wonwoo visit doesn’t come for a long time. It’s good, means he can focus on the more important present-day Wonwoo, the one he can see anytime he likes, the one he starts to hang out with whenever he can. With the exception of exam season in spring, he meets up with him and Jeonghan every week, and they quickly become his closest friends in Seoul.

“Do you want any kimchi bokumbap?” Seungkwan calls from the kitchen as he slips through the flat in his socks, hunting for his shoes.

“Can’t,” he says. “I’m headed over to Wonwoo’s. Thanks, though.”

“Again? Didn’t you just go on Monday?”

He leans over a kitchen counter to answer him. “Yeah, and now I’m going again. It’s this thing called friendship, Hyung. Maybe you should try and experience it sometime.”

“I have friends! There’s this one guy I’ve known my whole life, Lee Chan—I don’t know if you know him, he’s never around anymore—”

“Can you blame me for wanting to go and hang out with him, after all these years of waiting for him to turn up?”

“Only when it means abandoning me in the process,” Seungkwan says, running a finger down his cheek in a mock tear. “I miss you.”

“We went to the movies together last week,” he says. He spots his shoes, finally, by the fridge, however the hell they got there. “Stop acting like I’m deserting you.”

“It’s not my fault I’m dealing with my little boy growing up,” Seungkwan simpers, leaning over the countertop to pout down at him as he wrangles his shoes on. “The day you lose your virginity I think I’ll cry a little.”

“Don’t worry, you’re fine for a little while longer. I’m not even sure if we’re properly dating.”

“I thought you said you’d been going on dates?”

“We have, but it’s usually the three of us together. And we still don’t call each other boyfriends. So how do I know if it’s even proper dating?”

“You idiot, I’m pretty sure you’re dating them. You can always, you know, ask them? Communicate if you’re not sure.”

“Yeah…” he says, standing. “Maybe. I’ll leave it until after summer.”

“Hey, I can’t wait to have you back over the summer break.”

“Actually…” he says, smiling at him apologetically. “Jeonghan is getting an apartment in Seoul permanently, living with Cheol and his boyfriend. I’m staying with him for a little while once school breaks up, and Wonwoo asked us both to come to Changwon to stay with his family in summer, too. I’ll be in and out of Iksan a lot over summer.”

Seungkwan shakes his head, mouth open. “Betrayed. Truly, I’m dismayed that you’re being more social than I am.”

He grins and gives Seungkwan a quick kiss on the cheek on his way out of the kitchen. “Love you! You’ll always be my best friend!”

Seungkwan goes to hit him in retaliation. “Oh, don’t worry about me! I know my place in your life!”

He laughs as he pulls his coat on. “Number one, always!”

-

When the end of the year rolls around and Jeonghan is finally freed from his self-imposed thesis hibernation, he goes straight from handing in his essay to packing up his belongings.

“The landlord was insistent that we have to move in today,” he explains. “I’m running on no sleep, I think my notes about King Jeongjo are burned into my eyelids forever, and I can’t remember the last time I ate something that wasn’t takeout or Seungcheol’s dodgy jajangmyeon. But the move has to be done today.” He offloads a box into Chan’s open hands. “So thanks for coming, you guys. I might’ve dropped dead without you.”

“Happy to be of service,” he says, shifting the box in his arms. “Did you get your thesis done okay?”

“Done, gone, never to be looked at again as long as I shall live, I hope. I’ll get a good grade, though. Wonwoo, could you take this?”

“Congratulations,” Wonwoo says, taking the box from him. “I’m kind of looking forward to writing mine next year. A huge essay that encapsulates the most exciting bits of what you study sounds like so much fun! I can’t wait to discuss topics with my supervisor, but I really want to study the way English has been impacting Korean language over the last few decades. I really hope it’s not too big of an area.”

“You are a huge nerd,” Jeonghan informs him, picking up a load of bags that look suspiciously lighter than the boxes he handed either of them. “Come on, let’s head down to the car.”

“Why do you live on such a high floor?” he groans, shifting the box in his arms. “Are we going to have to do trip this every time we pick something up?”

“Yep. Seungcheol and Joshua are already there, so it’s our job to move the rest of the stuff out.”

“Wow, what good Hyungs.”

“They already shifted most of Seungcheol’s stuff, so it’s not so bad. It’s all my junk that’s left.”

“Why are you moving in with them?” Wonwoo asks. “Isn’t it weird to move in with a couple?”

“I’ve known Shua since forever. I was the one who introduced them to each other. I have best friend privileges.” Jeonghan throws his hair back and steps out of the elevator. “Jesus, I need a haircut.”

“I think he’s not planning to be living with them for long,” Chan says in a low voice, once Jeonghan is out of the building ahead of them.

“Why’s that?”

“Because you said you were moving out of your student house when you graduate next year. As long as he doesn’t have a place he’s tied down to, it leaves him free if you need a flatmate.”

Wonwoo shifts the box in his hands. “That’s a pretty big presumption to base a life decision on, isn’t it?”

“He can see the future. I think he has a right to make certain presumptions.”

“Catch up, slackers!” Jeonghan calls back to them.

“Of course, your highness!” He rounds the car door to shove his box onto one of the seats.

“One trip down, only infinite more to go,” he sighs, watching Wonwoo secure the box on the car floor.

It only takes them a few hours to make the place bare, despite Jeonghan’s impatience with it all. Between the three of them, they can move things relatively quickly, and are meticulous in picking out things that might otherwise be overlooked.

Moving it all into the new place is a different question. Between the five bodies bustling around the flat, it’s minor chaos, trying to figure out which box needs to go to which room. The squeeze past each other in the narrow hallway and try to lug in miscellaneous furniture without knocking someone out, as nearly happens when Jeonghan is stood out of Chan’s view, attempting to carrying a mirror taller than he is into the bedroom.

By the time they’re done, it’s late. “Are you two still staying over?” Jeonghan asks, looking outside. “I think the buses must’ve stopped running, and we’re too far out for either of you to walk home.”

“Are you sure that’s okay?” he asks around the last mouthful of their takeout. “I don’t want to make things more stressful for you. We could call a taxi.”

“It’s okay,” Jeonghan shrugs. “The bed is huge, and if you sleep over, you can help me unpack tomorrow.

“You’re terrible,” Seungcheol tells him through a laugh. “You’re inviting them over so they can do more work for you tomorrow? After everything you put them through today?”

“We’re getting a lie in, obviously!” Jeonghan defends. “I desperately need to sleep for, like, eighteen hours. Then we unpack together as a bonding activity.”

“How big is your bed?” Seungcheol asks. “You think it’s big enough for three people?”

“It can’t be,” Wonwoo says. “How could you afford a bed like that?”

“There’s a huge frame in my room left by the previous tenant. My old mattress won’t fully fit it, but once I get one…”

“Just pay for their taxi and give in, Jeonghan,” Joshua laughs.

“I don’t mind sleeping on your sofa,” Chan says. “If you want us to stay.”

“Oh, it’s a pull out!” Seungcheol says, delighted. “It’ll fit you both!”

“Perfect,” Jeonghan says, standing up. “Can we get it sorted now so I can pass out already?”

After spilling out the contents of several boxes to find the blankets, they eventually get settled on the pull out, saying their goodnights to the boys who disappear into their new bedrooms.

It only takes for a few seconds of darkness and quiet for it to feel strange, lying this close to Wonwoo. Reminds him of the time Wonwoo had visited him in the middle of the night, and he had asked him about the future.

“Wonwoo?” he says into the night, soft enough that his voice won’t carry to the bedrooms.

“Yeah?”

“Have you had your older self visit your younger self before?”

“Yeah, a few times.”

“What’s the oldest you’ve seen yourself?”

Wonwoo hums, low and steady. He sounds half asleep already, and the rough edge to his voice is soothing. “Maybe my mid-twenties? I’m not sure. Why?”

He rolls over to face Wonwoo in the dark. Streetlight comes in through the cracks in the blinds, enough for him to make out his side profile, solid and sharp. “Doesn’t that worry you? Especially after what we saw in the tteokbokki place?”

Wonwoo exhales, and doesn’t answer him immediately.

“Of course, it does. But if it means something terrible happens to me in my mid-twenties, it will happen. No amount of worrying about it will change that. It’ll only hurt me more to think about it too much.”

It’s beyond him, how Wonwoo can be passive about such a thing. Foresight into life and death, and he doesn’t want to do anything about it. But he’s experienced Wonwoo’s abilities for himself, and knows how overpowering and unpredictable they can be. Living with them must do something to your perception of life.

He inches a hand forwards on the bed without thinking, wanting to reach out for him, but hesitating. Wonwoo’s hand is there, laying on the covers—when his fingertips find it, he stills for a second, and then braves it. Puts a hand over his, and squeezes.

“We’ll be there for you. We’re going to figure this thing out together.”

Wonwoo turns his hand over and squeezes right back. “Thank you. Don’t think on it too much. Things will happen as they’re supposed to, and I can only trust in that.”

-

He falls asleep for most of the train journey to Changwon, so he’s still a little dazed when he’s greeted by Wonwoo’s enthusiastic mother at the train station.

“Oh, it is wonderful to see you boys—Wonwoo has told me so much about you—don’t worry dear, I’ll take that!” She stacks up their bags like they’re nothing, despite hasty protests from Jeonghan and confused questions from himself. “Wonwoo, you should get going if you want to catch the air show.”

“Are you sure you don’t want help getting these home?” he asks, hands out, ready to brace her.

“Don’t be silly! What did you bring them here for if you don’t take them to the events? Get going, and I’ll see you tonight.” She leans up to give him a kiss on the side of his head before waddling out of the station.

“What air show?” Jeonghan asks, watching her go. “What’s so urgent?”

Wonwoo starts walking, pulling them through the crowd and out of the station. “We’ve come just in time to catch the end of the cherry blossom festival. There’s an air show starting over the bay in an hour or so, and my Mom is set on me taking you to all the festival events while you’re here, because it’s the thing our city is most famous for.”

“Wait, isn’t Changwon known for that bridge? The romantic one everyone takes couple pictures on?” Chan asks, catching up with Wonwoo and holding his arm loosely. Jeonghan takes his other hand as they make their way out onto the street together. “She’s encouraging you to give us a date under the cherry blossoms?”

“Well—you know, it’s infamous, people come from all around to see the blossoms—”

“Yeah, and to kiss on the bridge!” Jeonghan says. “Your Mom is more enthusiastic about you kissing us than you are!”

“Well—I—that’s not—”

“I’m kidding,” Jeonghan reassures him. “Do you know the way from here?”

They push through the crowd, linked together, only to board an equally crowded bus. They stand close together, and he holds Wonwoo’s hand tight, keeping him anchored in place. Now would not be a good time for him to disappear. In return, Wonwoo leans into him, Jeonghan at his back.

Still, they make it to Masan bay in time to grab lunch before the air show begins. The crowd is huge, but a section of the wall running along the beach is free to be sat on. They climb up on it and squeeze together, digging into their fishcakes and store-bought sushi as they watch the Korean Air Force paint colours along the sky.

“Did you guys know this festival started as a celebration of Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s victory in the Imjin War?” Jeonghan says.

“Of course I do,” Wonwoo says, halfway through a packet of seaweed bites. “What do you take me for?”

“No,” Chan says, kicking his feet happily against the brick. The airplanes can dive and turn in ways that remind him of dance, and he wonders who got tasked to choreograph this piece. “Why was his victory so good?”

“He was never defeated at sea. He never even lost a ship. He’s one of the greatest naval commanders ever, and he didn’t even have proper training, or real recognition in his lifetime.”

“Woah. That’s pretty neat.”

Wonwoo offers out his packet of seaweed to Chan, who shakes his head. “They hold a victory parade in his honour every year. We get the military, marching band, the whole deal. I think we missed it this year, though.”

“If the festival is for him, what does he have to do with cherry blossoms?”

Wonwoo shrugs. “Who doesn’t like cherry blossoms? It’s not all that related. They just look the best at this time of year.”

“Where actually are they?” Jeonghan asks. “I haven’t seen a single cherry blossom petal yet. I feel like I’m being duped.”

“The best of them are in Jehwangsan park. We’ll head there afterwards.”

The crowd around them cheer as two planes take an impressive synchronised dive.

“Wonwoo?” he asks.

“Yeah?”

“Did you deliberately want to bring us here at this time? So you could show us all the sights of your city?”

“Of course. It’s the only interesting thing Changwon does all year. I might as well show you the good bits, right?”

He beams. “That’s nice. Thanks for bringing us now, even though the crowds are insane.”

Wonwoo looks up at the planes, but there’s a small smile on his face. “My pleasure.”

The park, though just as crowded, is by far better than the plane show. It had been an impressive display, sure, but the natural beauty of the blossom trees are something else. Strong branches support bunches of vibrant petals, and they span over the entire park, a blanket of pink over their heads. It makes him feel like he’s somewhere magical, somewhere else; he can’t take his eyes off the canopy of blossoms, afraid he’ll forget how stunning they are if he looks away.

Even better, there’s a monorail at the top of the park. “We have to take the monorail!” he says, pointing as soon as he sees it. “Can we? Oh, I bet it’ll look beautiful from up there!”

“Sorry, what was that? You want Hyung to climb up a mountain?” Jeonghan says, wrapping an arm around Chan’s shoulders. “I’m going to ask you to reconsider.”

“It’s a hill, not a mountain, and it’s not too bad. It’ll take twenty minutes,” Wonwoo grins, pulling them onto the path that leads up the hill.

“Just a hill,” Jeonghan scoffs, latching onto Chan’s hand and pulling his weight against him. “Is the monorail worth the view?”

“I don’t know, I’ve not been on it since I was a kid.”

“So why the hell—”

“Hyung,” he whines, turning to pick up Jeonghan’s other hand and pull him up the hill with them. “Don’t you want to experience the monorail with me?”

“I’m quite happy seeing the cherry blossoms from below, to be honest with you.”

“Hyung!” he whines. “Don’t you want me to be able to go on the monorail, then? I really want to…” He puts on his best big, pleading eyes.

Jeonghan sighs as dramatically as he can, despite the fact that he’s willingly walking up the path with them. “I’m not a dancer like you are, you know. I don’t have the stamina for this.”

“Neither am I!” Wonwoo says. “It’s a normal hill!”

“You’re a Changwon native, you don’t get a say in this!”

The monorail is definitely worth it. They’re told to sit once they’re in there, but all he wants is to stand and press his face to the glass and watch the treetops go by. It makes him breathless, the expanse of pink and brown under a clear blue sky, looking like something from a dream.

It’s made perfect by the fact that Wonwoo and Jeonghan are there by his side, happy to let him sit closest to the window even though they’re craning to look out too. The cherry blossoms pass, reflecting a little pink onto the apples of Wonwoo’s cheeks, and he wants so badly to kiss him.

They go back to Wonwoo’s home for dinner, where they’re met with a small feast. They thank his Mom heartily for the meal, and greet Wonwoo’s father politely, and meet Wonwoo’s teenage brother in passing. Three floor mats are placed in Wonwoo’s room, their bags placed amongst them, and then they’re bustled out of the house again with a picnic blanket and food in hand, instructed to head up the hill to see the fireworks show.

“Are you sure your Mom wants us staying over?” Jeonghan asks as they leave the house again. “I get the feeling she wants us out more than she wants us in.”

“She’s just excited that I brought you guys back. She was always worried I’d never be able to live a normal life, you know, with my condition. I was always scared to spend too much time around people, in case they found out what was wrong with me. I’ve never brought anyone home until now. Rarely even had friends over.”

“Hey,” Chan says, walking in step with him. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You fit in perfectly well with the two of us.”

“That’s because we’re strange people too, though,” Jeonghan says from his other side.

“Yeah, we kind of are,” Wonwoo laughs. “My brother used to call me a freak, but I think it’s because he’s jealous that I get to visit the future, or whatever.”

“Bet he’d love to find out what I can do,” Jeonghan remarks.

“Anyway, Mom is just happy for me, and she wants me to make the most out of you guys being here. The fireworks are pretty cool, though. I’m only surprised they’re not coming out to see them too.”

“Maybe they are, but she wants you to spend your time with us alone.”

“Maybe so,” Wonwoo says, looking down at the road, mouth turned up into a small smile. Chan’s heart feels about ready to burst every time Wonwoo acts so shy around them. He wishes he could hurry up and kiss his worries away already, but he doesn’t want to push it if he’s not there yet.

The park is busy even though night has swept in, chilly and dark. They hunt around for a free patch of grass to take, then sit close together, waiting for the show to start.

“I don’t know why she packed all this food,” Jeonghan remarks. “I couldn’t eat another thing. Her kimchi is too good, it’s dangerous.”

“More for me, then,” Wonwoo says, digging into the basket and pulling out a tub of brownies.

“Well, if there are dessert foods in there, it’s a different matter,” Jeonghan amends, leaning over Chan to reach in the basket for himself.

“Right,” Wonwoo agrees, eyes shining. “That changes everything.”

The fireworks show begins with a bang, making him sit up straighter, watching as sparks fill the sky. The crowd around him gasp in appreciation, and he has to admit, it is beautiful. The fireworks come up one after the other, in quick succession, mixing reds and blues and golds in the sky. From their spot on the slope, they can see between the cherry blossoms, right over Changwon and out onto the bay, where the water reflects the coloured lights. The firecrackers are the best, send bangs right through his skin and deep into his bones, filling the park with sound and sights big enough to captivate him completely.

He can feel Jeonghan’s weight leaning on him at one side, and he tears his eyes away from the display to see him watching him with crinkled eyes. “Cute,” he says, barely loud enough to be heard over the noise.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, turning back to watch the sky filled with coloured light. He’s never seen any firework show half as good as this. The way the colours light up the city, the energy of the crowd thrumming in the air. He could sit here all night.

When the fireworks stop coming, he’s dazed for a few seconds before joining in with the applause that resonates around the park. He looks over to Wonwoo, only to find he’s already looking at him.

“You liked it?” he asks, though he looks like he already knows the answer.

Chan gets the terrible urge to lean over and kiss his smile. “It was amazing! I’m so glad you brought us here, Hyung.”

His face brightens, and he leans in a little. Chan holds his breath just long enough for Wonwoo to shift away again, apparently in the motion of standing up. “I’m going to get us some sparklers at the stall before they run out.”

Then he’s gone, figure outlined in the dark.

“I will get a kiss out of him before the end of this holiday, even if it kills one of us,” Jeonghan says into his ear, and it makes him laugh.

“Stop! If he’s not ready, he’s not ready!”

“Oh, I’ll be good. But he’s dying to, you can tell. I don’t know why he’s holding back.”

“Maybe he’s just nervous. It’s okay, we have time.”

Jeonghan tilts his head. “Too much time, too little time. Hard to tell when it’s us three. But I’m getting good instincts about this week.”

“I think that’s called, ‘having fun’, Hyung.”

“You doubt my killer intuition?”

“Only when it’s stating the obvious,” he grins, leaning in close. Jeonghan doesn’t back down, smirking at him and knocking their heads together. He laughs, and lets Jeonghan kiss his cheek.

“Like I said. Good instincts.”

-

The cherry blossom festival, as it turns out, is not Changwon’s only attraction. It’s his favourite, by far, but still; he wouldn’t call the giant aquarium, hike up and view from Anmingogae hill, trip around Junam reservoir and the beautiful walk through Gyeonghwa Station site nothing.

Despite it all, one of his favourite days is one towards the end of the trip, when they’re officially exhausted from their week of seeing the sights under the directions of Wonwoo’s mom. His parents head out for the night, and his brother is nowhere to be seen, which means that they have free reign of the house.

“Do you guys want to bake cookies and have a movie night, or something?” Jeonghan suggests as the sun starts to set on their day of laying in bed and gaming together.

“Only if you know how to bake cookies,” Wonwoo says.

“Not a clue, dear. That’s the fun of it.”

After two hours, three corner store runs, one instance of setting the fire alarm off and a panicked moment when he thought he’d broken the Jeon family oven, the cookies are only slightly underbaked when they come out. They count it as a success, and give themselves the reward of putting off the cleaning until later.

They settle into the sofa and each pick a movie to line up, and Jeonghan starts them off with a romance drama as his choice of movie. None of them have seen it before, and it turns out to be hysterically bad, leaving them doing more commentary than viewing.

“Wait! Don’t laugh! They’re finally about to kiss!” Wonwoo shouts, pulling on Chan as if that will shake him from his fit of giggles.

“No they’re not!” Jeonghan says. “They’re going to get interrupted again, for sure!”

“Take your bets!” Wonwoo shouts, but Chan is too busy laughing into Wonwoo’s arm to give his input. The bird swoops down to take her handbag before he can suggest anything half as ridiculous.

“Oh, God, I hate this,” Wonwoo says, cheeks round with laughter.

“I didn’t know it was this bad,” Jeonghan protests, though he also grasps at Chan in glee.

They still finish it, of course, because watching bad movies can be just as fun as watching good movies. It serves as whiplash when Wonwoo follows it up with an exceptionally sad anime choice.

He really gets into it as the movie starts building up to its crux, and the others go quiet around him too. When the reveal comes—they were soulmates all along!—he gasps, tears streaming down his face, and looks over to Jeonghan to see if he’d predicted it.

Only to find him fast asleep.

“Hey,” he says, voice low. “How can he fall asleep watching something like this?”

Wonwoo looks over and laughs. “We must’ve exhausted him trying to figure out how to turn the fire alarm off. Oh, you’re crying?” He reaches out with gentle hands to thumb the tears from his cheeks.

“It’s a really good movie,” he chokes in self-defence. “How are you not crying?”

“I’ve seen it a thousand times. It’s my favourite, beautiful every time.”

“It really is. I wish they could be together.”

“We haven’t got to the end yet. They might still be.”

“Do you think?”

Wonwoo shifts on the sofa, pulling his legs further under him. It brings him a little closer, and he puts an arm around Chan for balance. Chan doesn’t stop looking at him, so close.

“Yes,” he says, hand rubbing Chan’s shoulder. “I think we should see.”

Wonwoo doesn’t look back to the movie, though, and neither does he. Reaching out to curl his fingers into Wonwoo’s shirt, he nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

When they kiss, it’s a gentle, careful thing. Very different to his first kiss with Jeonghan, but just as good—a little salty from the tears on his cheeks, a little sweet from the cookies he ate earlier. It makes him feel the fireworks again, visceral and bright, thrumming through his body. Wonwoo’s hand feels big and warm on his shoulder; his shirt is soft in his grip.

“I fall asleep for five seconds—” Jeonghan stirs from behind them, and Chan falls into the space on the sofa where Wonwoo had been sitting.

He whips around to look at a sleep-soft, grinning Jeonghan. “You scared him off!”

“It’s not my fault you chose to make out with me right here!” Jeonghan whines, pushing at the sofa to sit up. “He was probably on the edge of jumping, anyway. I imagine kissing a cute boy counts as one of his strong emotion triggers.”

“You think I’m a cute boy?” he says, sticking out his bottom lip.

“Would I be doing all this if you weren’t?”

“I knew you only liked me for my looks,” he murmurs, leaning in to kiss him. It’s been months since the first time, in his bedroom, but this is just as electric—fresh off the thrill of kissing Wonwoo, and he’s back in Jeonghan’s lap, hand in his hair and feeling just how lucky he is.

The movie is finished by the time Wonwoo appears back again, but the two haven’t been paying much attention.

“Hey!” he splutters, looking at them from the other side of the sofa. “I wasn’t gone that long!”

“Long enough,” Jeonghan supplies, patting Chan’s side. He obligingly shifts away, giving space for Jeonghan to crawl along the sofa, and Wonwoo watches him come.

“Don’t I get a kiss too?” Jeonghan asks, hands curling around Wonwoo’s shoulders.

“Since you asked so nicely,” Wonwoo murmurs, and meets his mouth halfway, supporting Jeonghan’s waist as they kiss.

It’s almost as tangible as if he were between them, watching them hold each other like this. They fit so perfectly together, it makes him breathless. It’s pretty hot, too. He can’t get over how ridiculously handsome they both are, and how they both want him; it’s hard to believe he gets to have this, all for himself.

Wonwoo’s breath is high when they part. “Didn’t jump that time. Are you proud of me?”

“A little disappointed, actually. Why does Channie get the privileges?”

“That’s not a privilege! He disappeared in the middle of our first kiss!”

“I’m sorry,” Wonwoo says. “I went and bought you that dinosaur toy, if it helps.”

“Oh, it does. I loved that thing. I would take another kiss as well, though,” he says, hanging from Jeonghan’s shoulders and beaming at Wonwoo.

Wonwoo happily obliges, cupping the side of his head as he takes him close and kisses him on the mouth.

“Don’t kiss each other when I’m asleep next time. You’re too good to miss,” Jeonghan says as they part. Chan presses a kiss to his cheek, grasping his shoulders, unable to contain his glee.

“We can do that,” he says, burying his face in his back. “No problem.”

-

He’d been excited to get back to Seoul for school again, because nothing at home seems quite as good when you’ve experienced it bigger and better in the capital city. But when second year starts and he’s buried in endless dance practise, he’s hit with reality. Now, things in school really start to matter, and his practise hours quickly start to double down.

It doesn’t help that Wonwoo has begun his third year, which means being buried in thesis work, and Jeonghan has begun an internship in an archive. He’s working on the other side of the city most days—the ones he isn’t, Chan inevitably has to practise, or choreograph, or perform. Evenings are the times he comes alive, driven by a day of dancing, but are also the times Jeonghan sinks in, ready to sleep. Wonwoo is all over the place, sleep pattern falling out of sync with the rest of society. It means they miss each other, time after time.

That leaves them with only their odd nights off together, and he treasures them as much as he can. Jeonghan gets the promised king-sized mattress to fit the bed, and invites them to sleep over as often as they can both make it, watching movies and eating junk food together . It’s only ever sleeping, nothing too exciting happening in Jeonghan’s king bed—taking things slow for Wonwoo’s sake, who still blushes when they kiss—but he’s glad for any time he gets to spend with his boyfriends. To watch crappy movies and cuddle. To talk, about anything, their days and nights and what they want from the future.

“So they really are your boyfriends now?” Seungkwan asks, study notes abandoned in favour of the reality show they’ve got on in the background. “Like, for real?”

“For real,” he says, confident. “We’re, like, doing all the boyfriend things. They can’t not be my boyfriends.”

“And you’re happy?”

“Yes.” He’s never been surer about anything. “They really make me happy.”

Seungkwan nods, pushing food around his plate.

“What is it?” he asks. If there’s one thing Seungkwan isn’t good at, it’s being quiet. It’s unnerving.

“Doesn’t it worry you?” he says, putting the plate down in defeat. “These guys come along, all planned out and perfect for you, and you all just… fall together? In a neat little package?”

“I mean, our getting together hasn’t been the steadiest thing…”

“I know, but… well, maybe I’m overthinking it. I don’t want to ruin your happiness or anything. It just seems so ominous, doesn’t it? What if it all means trouble later down the road?”

Seungkwan is dangerously close to their real worries, somehow, without knowing half the details. “You’re right. Everything could go sideways really fast. But what am I supposed to do? Up and leave them behind because I’m afraid? It’s not like I could even shake Wonwoo if I tried.”

“There’s other people you can be with, you know. Normal people. Who don’t travel in time, or see into the future.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”

“I’m just saying. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt by all this.”

He never told Seungkwan about seeing Wonwoo in the café, bloody and scared. Things started feeling personal, then, like something they should keep between the three of them. Seungkwan’s fear for him only confirms that.

“I’ll be okay, Hyung. Really. I just want to be with them. If I follow what I think is right, the future will fold out alright, won’t it?”

Seungkwan looks at him. “I don’t know. I hope so, Chan.”

The truth is, he’s not sure he’ll be okay at all.

“Have you had any interesting dreams lately?” Wonwoo asks one evening. Jeonghan’s bedroom has grown dark around them, colours from the TV lighting his face. “Anything exciting?”

“It’s been weird,” Jeonghan says. “Sometimes my dreams are murky, so I can’t really see what’s happening, or so hyper-focused on one thing that I can’t understand what it is I’m seeing. But I’ve been having one lately that’s so clear, it feels like I’m there. I’m not, though—it’s not even my future.”

“It’s about me?” he asks.

Jeonghan strokes his hair in slow, soothing movements. “Yeah. You’re in a forest. It looks young and fresh, so bright and beautiful, but you’re crying. You’re scared, and upset, and really angry. Someone’s holding onto you, but I can’t see who it is.”

He goes quiet. Chan lies still, imagining it for himself.

“Is that it?” Wonwoo asks.

“I’m not a time traveller, Wonwoo, I can’t give you a whole series of events. That’s just what I’ve been seeing.”

“Do you have it a lot?”

“A few nights a week. That’s weird for me, too. Usually my dreams don’t come so close together, and I’ve never seen the same one multiple times before.”

“Never?” Chan asks, in a murmur.

“Never.”

“Maybe we should start scouting out forests, get ahead of your dream,” Wonwoo suggests.

“No,” Jeonghan says, firm. “The dream feels really bad. More like a nightmare. We want to avoid this dream coming true at all costs. No forests for us.” He shifts closer to sling an arm around Chan on the bed, and his body feels warm against his back.

He tries to push those things from his mind. It’s like he said; some things are better kept between the three of them. They can handle anything, as long as they’re together.


	3. Chapter 3

It turns out he had been right, all that time ago, sitting in his bedroom and talking with future Wonwoo in the dark; it was their first time together that had made him jump to Chan’s room in the middle of the night, his orgasm a strong enough emotion to act as a trigger.

“Masturbation must’ve been a nightmare for him to get the hang of growing up,” Jeonghan remarks, moving into the space left by Wonwoo. His hands start running down Chan’s sides, looking for a response even though they’re both spent.

“Stop!” he says, laughing and wriggling away from those hands. “It’s not like it’s his fault!”

“Oh, I know. I have sympathy for the poor boy,” he grins. “He’d better be able to get a handle on that in future. I’ll let it go this time.”

“You’re unbelievable. At least he didn’t jump right in the middle.”

“You’re right about that. I would be a lot less happy.”

They settle down in warm sheets, loosely wrapped around each other and murmuring into skin as they wait for him to come back.

When he does, he’s wearing the sweatpants and shirt that Chan hasn’t seen in nearly a year.

“You were pretty sure of yourself even before we met, huh?” Wonwoo asks, climbing into the bed on Chan’s other side to kiss the back of his neck.

He smiles at the feeling of Wonwoo’s warm weight settling at his back, knowing he’s bracketed by his two favourite boys. “Jeonghan will go out of business if he’s not careful, huh? I could see into your future from a year away.”

“Will you be making a habit of this every time we have sex?” Jeonghan asks, propping himself up on an elbow to look over Chan. “It doesn’t fit in with my plans.”

“I’ll probably be fine from here on out,” he says, smiling a little sheepishly. “It’s first time doing things that get me the worst.”

“So, the first time you got off on your own…?” Chan asks, a grin on his face.

“Yeah, I ended up in a wardrobe. Not sure when, not sure where. Decided I didn’t really want to know, and stayed hidden until I jumped back.”

Chan laughs, delighted.

“But after the first time, you were able to suppress the urge jump?” Jeonghan asks.

“Yeah. It’s easier to keep myself contained enough to stay put when I know what to expect.”

Jeonghan smiles, and buries himself back into a pillow. “Interesting.”

“I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not really control. More like adjustment. I told you, I can’t control my ability like that.”

“Hmm,” Jeonghan says. “We’ll see.”

“Was that your first time with us, or your first time at all?” Chan asks.

“At all. I was pretty sure a jump was going to happen, and that’s not exactly something you can explain away to a one-night stand. Or, well, anyone.”

“Oh, you did well, then,” Jeonghan compliments, leaning over to kiss his mouth.

“Thanks. You guys, too. You’re really great.”

“You hear that, Hyung?” Chan says. “We’re ‘really great’.”

“Isn’t that wonderful? I wonder if he’ll leave us a review online, too.”

“Oh my God, shut up,” Wonwoo whines, pushing his face into the pillows. “I’m just glad I’m doing this with you guys. I love you both.”

It’s the first time the words have been said out loud between them. He rolls over onto his back to face Wonwoo properly, smiling softer now. “I love you too.” He looks back to Jeonghan. “So much.”

Jeonghan kisses him once, lingering and slow. “I love you both very much. I’m so lucky to have you.”

They fall asleep sometime later, linked together; skin against skin, pillows soft, hair softer.

-

After they move into their new apartment together, Chan stays at Jeonghan and Wonwoo’s place for almost the whole summer. It’s too good to resist—a bed with his boyfriends, free reign on Seoul without schoolwork bogging him down, and the apartment all to himself when Jeonghan has work and Wonwoo has his placement. He tends to work on his choreographies, pushing the tables aside in the living room and dancing in the free space. Jeonghan has taken to leaving yellow post it notes on the chairs that say _try not to scape the floor,_ and it makes him wonder if he sees him dancing in his dreams.

“I don’t know why you don’t just move in permanently,” Jeonghan says one evening, moving an armful of Chan’s workout clothes from the sofa. “You’ll be here enough over the next school year, if this summer has been any indication.”

“I’ll be here as much as I can, but I’m still on the tenancy agreement for the other place. It’s closer to the university, too, and the school studios are a lot better than this living room. No offence.”

“Sue me, we can’t afford a big place straight out of school,” Wonwoo drawls from the doorway, dumping his bag on the floor.

“Believe me, the size of this place will not stop me making my own space in the bed.”

“Or dents in the floor?” Wonwoo says, looking at the skid marks left by the table.

He looks down too, rubbing a little apologetically with his socked foot. “Well, you’ve got to make the place feel lived in.”

“Even if you’re not the one living here?”

“Especially then.”

The song he was dancing to comes to an end, and he goes to turn it off before Jeonghan can complain about the loop.

“Did either of you hear the news?” Jeonghan says into the following quiet.

“About what?”

“Cheol and Shua. They’re engaged.”

Wonwoo audibly gasps from the doorway, and Chan perks up. “You’re kidding!”

Jeonghan shakes his head, soft smile on his face. “They’ve been talking about it for a while. I’m happy they finally got their shit together.”

“They’re so young!” Wonwoo says. “I mean, they’re made for each other, but still…”

Jeonghan shrugs. “Makes sense, doesn’t it? Why wait when they already know it’s what they want?”

“That’s amazing!” he gushes. “Oh my God, I hope they get to have babies together.”

“They’ve asked me to be best man, those assholes,” Jeonghan says fondly. “What do I know about making nice speeches?”

Chan comes to sit next to him on the sofa. “You can do it, no problem. We all know you’re secretly a huge softie.”

“I can help you write it. You’ve just got to say some sappy stuff about how they’re perfect for each other, then tell a story to embarrass them, then round it up by saying how much you love them.”

“They’re doing this to bully me, I swear.”

“You’ve said yes, right?” he asks.

“Obviously. They said I would be uninvited if I said no.”

“Ah.” He nods, knowingly. “Friendship.”

He tries to imagine what the three of them would look like, getting married. They’d have to adapt the ceremony, for sure. Maybe only a small audience, he wouldn’t want Wonwoo to get nervous enough to jump away… but the sight of the other two in suits? Well, it would all be worth it for that. They might not get such an opportunity, but he’s glad Cheol and Shua are living their truth together. He’d like that for himself, someday.

-

For Wonwoo’s first birthday after he moves in, Jeonghan offers to make him a meal in celebration.

“Oh, no, let’s not,” Wonwoo says, “I know what your cooking skills are like. Myungho recommended me this good Chinese place—”

“What, you’re going to turn me down just like that?” Jeonghan says, hands on hips.

“It is his birthday. We can do whatever it is he wants,” he points out.

“Your parents will be taking you out to a meal, right?”

“Well, I expect so—”

“And we’ll be invited, because your mom loves us.”

“Yes, but—”

“So, we might as well do something different between the three of us! Make it a date night!”

Chan looks between them, though he already knows who’s winning this one. Jeonghan isn’t the type to back down when he’s set on something.

“Yes, but it’s my birthday. Shouldn’t we do something special? How is spending a night in together any different to what we usually do?”

“You underestimate me, Jeon Wonwoo. It’ll be different because I’m making you food rather than buying you food, and we’ll properly sit down and eat together. It’ll be good bonding. Say yes.”

“What about me?” Chan asks.

“What about you?”

“What will I do while you make Wonwoo food?”

“You’ll be helping me, of course. Don’t you want to celebrate your boyfriend’s birthday?”

“So you’re going to let him sit there and watch us?”

“Have neither of you seen a romantic movie in your lives? This is a fun couples thing, that normal couples do.”

“This is time-affected throuples erasure,” he says.

They end up attempting a disastrous take on risotto, which Jeonghan picks out because he says Italian food is the definition of romantic, but then keeps trying to add spices and kimchi sauce to it.

“It’s meant to be a creamy dish, Hyung—stop, don’t add chili pepper paste, you’re going to ruin the sauce—”

“But it doesn’t taste of anything! This is innovation, Chan. I’m adapting it to our culture!”

Wonwoo gets a good laugh out of watching Jeonghan in the kitchen, which seems to have been Jeonghan’s plan all along, because there’s no way he’s that unironically proud over the risotto abomination he produces. He ends up sitting Jeonghan down, laughing at his face when he tries his own dish, and turning to make them pasta instead, because he’s pretty good at those.

It’s an easy meal. Thoughtless, even, something quick enough for them to eat quickly, because he’s starting to get hungry. They might have to go out for a proper meal somewhere after all, to make it up to Wonwoo, to do something special together.

He watches the pasta boil, strains it, mixes in the sauce, dishes it out. Picks up a bowl, and because he’s not really paying attention, his grip isn’t good enough; it slips from his hand, and his body tenses instinctively, waiting for the smash, for the mess on the floor.

Only nothing comes, and he looks around to see Jeonghan there, bowl caught in two hands. He could’ve sworn that he had been sat at the table only seconds ago, talking with Wonwoo.

“Thanks,” he says, breathless, picking up the other two bowls with more careful holds.

“No worries.” Jeonghan puts one hand to Chan’s back, gently guiding him to the table.

“Instinct?” Wonwoo asks, watching them, thanking Chan for his bowl. “I’ve never seen you move that fast before, so it must’ve been one of your instincts.”

“He would’ve been upset if he dropped the bowl,” Jeonghan says. “Thought we’d better not have that.”

“How specific are your instincts?” Chan asks. He’s experienced Jeonghan’s other instincts before, but they’re usually about things like what the weather will be like, or the general time a delivery will come by. For him to act so quickly about something so immediate is a little thrilling. Like he’s a superhero. “Can you usually predict things like that? Emotions?”

“Usually it’s a sudden knowledge that something will happen, and I react on instinct. More of a feeling than a vision, like my dreams are. I knew I should get up and go for the bowl a few seconds before it happened, because I knew you would feel bad otherwise.”

“What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done on instinct?” Wonwoo asks.

“He would meet me walking to school almost every day in my first term,” Chan says. “Did I ever tell you that? Whether I left early or late, he would be there, and I really wondered what was up with this guy.”

Jeonghan laughs. “Right, I had loads of instincts about you when we first met. I was trying to act on them as randomly as possible at first, so that I wouldn’t seem like a stalker.”

“You still kind of were, though,” Chan says. “Sorry to break it to you, but just because your knowledge about me was innate doesn’t make it any less weird that you knew my schedule better than I did.”

“What, do you have regrets that I kept up with you?”

“Not in the slightest,” he says. “I’m just letting you know.”

“I dodged a dog bite once, to answer your question,” Jeonghan tells Wonwoo. “We were delivering flyers for my dad’s work, and I hesitated before putting mine through this one letterbox. A second later, I could hear barking, and this dog scrabbling at the door, and there was this phantom pain in my hand.”

“Woah,” Wonwoo gasps. “That’s awesome.”

“It was one of the first instincts I had,” Jeonghan says, looking down at his hand. “It was really weird.”

“It’s like a superpower,” he remarks.

“Yeah, except you and I are the only ones I can save with it.”

“I’m not complaining.”

“I’m right here,” Wonwoo says, half a laugh, half-whining.

“You can time travel out of any situation,” Chan says. “I’ve got to have someone at my side to stop me from dropping pasta, haven’t I?”

“I could time travel back and catch the pasta for you?”

“Not willingly, you couldn’t.”

“He could if he worked on it,” Jeonghan quips, and Wonwoo rolls his eyes.

“Hyung…”

“You know, if you let me try and help you sometime, maybe I’d stop going on about it.”

“I’ll only let you down.”

“You could never,” Jeonghan says. “Take a few days off, sometime. We’ll sit down and work on a plan.”

Wonwoo plays with his food. “Maybe. When I’ve worked there long enough to take holiday. Not yet.”

“Good enough for me,” Jeonghan says. “I’ll get you there.”

“What exactly makes you think you know his powers better than him?” Chan asks, without judgement. The two of them have never quite agreed on the nature of time, but Jeonghan has always seemed so sure that he can change Wonwoo’s mind, given the chance—and that he can change the future with it.

“I don’t think I do,” he says. “I just have more conviction. And better instincts.”

-

His deadlines all come upon him at once, assessment after choreography showcase after performance, and the days start to blur together as he spends every waking moment in the studio. He drives the choreography into him until it settles in deep, innate enough that there’s no way he can mess it up. He does it again and again, asks Junhui for criticism, records himself over and over, drives himself into the ground to get this one perfect. If he can nail this, he can graduate with the grade so badly wants.

His world tilts on its axis a little when Jeonghan and Wonwoo come through the studio door one evening. It’s been so long since he’s met either of them on campus that they look out of place here, now.

“Hyungs?” he asks, walking over to pause the music as they step through the door. Damp hair hangs in his eyes, and his breathing is heavy; he was due for a break. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Wonwoo says with a smirk. “Do you know what day it is?”

He doesn’t, but the sinking feeling in his stomach is giving him a good guess. “Oh, God. Is it Friday? It’s Friday, isn’t it?”

That means two more days until the showcase. It also means that he’d completely forgotten about their weekly date night, and left them waiting for him in the apartment.

He groans and sits on the floor heavily. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how I forgot.”

“It’s okay,” Jeonghan says, sitting down next to him and dropping the plastic bag in his hand. “It’s probably not a bad thing to spend date night out of the apartment for once, anyway.”

“In a sweaty dance studio?” Wonwoo asks, amused.

“I can’t believe I forgot.” He’s not usually like this. He prides himself in never forgetting a birthday, in never being late to an event, and it feels bad to have forgotten that his boyfriends were waiting for him in an apartment across town. He hates being a disappointment, more than anything.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Wonwoo says, stroking the back of his hair once as he comes to sit next to the two of them. “It happens. You’ve been working hard.”

Jeonghan starts handing out takeaway boxes of Chinese food like it’s not totally contraband to eat in the dance studios. He’ll clean up once they’re gone, and hope the smell doesn’t linger. Admittedly, he could really do with the food—he hadn’t realised it before, but with the smell right here, he’s suddenly starving.

“How did you know I was here?” he asks, taking the box of food gratefully.

“Instinct,” Jeonghan says, nonchalant.

“Also, you’re always here,” Wonwoo adds. “I didn’t need to see the future to know that.”

“How have you been holding up? We haven’t heard from you much this week,” Jeonghan asks lightly.

“I’m fine,” he says, wiping sweat from his hands before digging into the food. “It’s just been a crazy week. The final showcase is soon, and it’s a big chunk of my grade. I need to get it right.”

“You’re not overdoing it, right? Getting enough sleep, eating every day?”

“Of course. I’m a dancer, I know how to take care of my body. Unlike some people.”

“Hey!” Wonwoo says, picking up on the tease even though Chan hadn’t looked at him. “I bet I could do your routine just as well as you!”

“I’d love to see it,” he says, grinning. “Would that be before or after your daily fast food diet?”

“I could do it right now,” Wonwoo says, standing up, food abandoned. “Watch this.”

He proceeds to do a semi-accurate rendition of one of Chan’s choreographies, one he’d shown them a few times in the run up to his last assessment. Only Wonwoo, with his non-existent dance history, wriggles through the whole thing like a streamer in the wind, his lean build and long limbs vaguely reminiscent of a dancing skeleton.

He laughs out loud at the way Wonwoo remembers some of the moves, filling in transitions for others, before eventually going off-book and making it up as he goes. “Yeah!” he shouts over Chan’s burst of joy. “I told you I was good at this!”

“Wait, you’re doing it wrong!” Jeonghan says, standing up to join him. “That bit, like this—you’re supposed to shimmy instead.” He then proceeds to shake his whole body in a way Chan thinks he’s never seen on a human being before. For a good reason.

“Oh, sorry!” Wonwoo says, before joining in. Chan laughs so hard he falls back onto the floor, clutching at it to stay grounded.

“Stop!” he says between breaths. “You’re defiling my studio!”

“Freestyle!” Jeonghan announces, before taking Wonwoo by the hand and pulling him further into the space, twirling him around in some impromptu couples dance. Wonwoo obliges with a grin on his face, spinning around in Jeonghan’s arms as they take the room by storm.

His showcase is a complete success, and Wonwoo and Jeonghan are there with flowers and kisses to congratulate him on it. The hours in the studio were worth it, his years of schoolwork were worth it, and Jeonghan and Wonwoo are more worth it than ever. He’s so lucky to have them.

-

They surprise him with a trip to Sokcho to celebrate his graduation, and he thinks he’s never felt a calm the way he does walking along the beach there, blue skies above, his boys at both sides. Somehow, Wonwoo manages to convince Jeonghan that climbing Mount Seorak would be an excellent holiday activity.

“Do we really have to go all the way to the top?” Jeonghan asks, and Chan takes his hand, happy to pull him along the rocky path. “Isn’t it enough that we did this last time we took a trip together?”

“It’s fun!” Chan says. It really is beautiful up here—the rocks are smooth and old, and covered in snow higher up, despite the blue skies all around them. The air feels fresh, in a way you don’t get anywhere in Seoul, something he’s desperately needed after the last chaotic year stuck in the studio. “Isn’t it fun to do things you can’t do anywhere else?”

“Sure, but I don’t see why you two are so set on going up difficult slopes as a fun activity.”

“Well, we could have a picnic on the tourist-choked beach, surrounded by screaming kids,” Wonwoo says, while Chan murmurs _the beach wasn’t that bad_. “Or we could have it on a peaceful mountain peak, at one of the most natural cultural attractions in South Korea. Which is better?”

“Isn’t this Chan’s trip? Shouldn’t you be asking him this?”

“I don’t mind,” he says, truthfully. “Being with you guys is the best bit.”

Jeonghan squeezes his hand, and Chan looks back to smile at him. “See? Who put you in charge, Jeon?”

“You left me to make the picnic, so you definitely don’t get to be in charge.”

“You offered!”

“Look!” Chan says, pointing to a section of rock nearby, causing both boys to stop. There’s a bird sitting there, head twitching as it eyes them. It’s big, and regal-looking; maybe a hawk, or an eagle. “Wow.”

The bird takes off, swooping low over their heads before sailing along in the clear sky above. He can’t hear anyone else around in that moment, and for some reason, the sight of the bird gives him a surge of joy. It looks so free.

They settle down for the picnic a little while later, when they find a rock to sit on that gives them a clear view of the sprawling fields and trees of Sokcho. Jeonghan rests his head on Chan’s legs when they’re done eating, left sitting and making conversation.

“I’ve seen this before, you know,” Jeonghan says, looking out at the view. “In a dream, from years ago. I always assumed I’d come here with family.”

“Do you never see other people in your dreams?” Wonwoo asks. “You can’t even know who you’re with?”

“No. Only myself, and over the last few years, Chan. Though I’ve been having dreams a lot less lately,” Jeonghan closes his eyes, shuffling his head a little further onto Chan’s legs. “I’m not sure it’s a good thing.”

“Why?” Wonwoo asks. Chan strokes Jeonghan’s hair slowly.

“My visions have never slowed down before. It can only mean there’s less future left to see.”

The implication makes him still, and they’re all quiet for a few moments.

“Your abilities have slowed too, haven’t they?” he says to Wonwoo. He can’t say he hasn’t noticed.

“I’ve had long gaps between jumps before.”

“A year and a half long?”

He shrugs. “Maybe I’m getting a handle on it now that I’m grown.”

“Maybe,” Chan says, without looking at him.

Jeonghan opens his eyes, squinting at the sun. “Feels like something’s closing in, doesn’t it? Fewer visions of the future, fewer visits to the past. Like something’s coming to meet us in the middle.”

“Don’t say that,” Chan says quietly.

Jeonghan sits up and looks around at him, puts a hand to his cheek. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up now.” He presses a quick kiss to Chan’s mouth.

He watches the birds go by them, greets the occasional passing tourist. Finishing school feels like an ending, or a new beginning; having these two by his side feels like a constant. He hopes it’ll last as long as the rocks beneath them have; hopes they can have the freedom of these birds for as long as possible.

-

He starts his work with a dance crew contracted to an idol company just long enough before the wedding to be able to make small talk about it; Joshua’s endless family members seem to keep coming up to him, none of whom he knows. Still, everyone’s happy to hear about the dances he’s been doing and the people he works with, and to ask him whether the Inkigayo sandwich is really that good. It’s not. He doesn’t have the heart to tell the young nieces that.

When the ceremony begins, he settles in, waiting for the two grooms to arrive. The place they booked is nice, beautifully decorated and big enough to hold their many guests. Everyone is dressed up to the nines, which is one of his favourite parts about weddings, he decides. The dazzling realisation had come about when Wonwoo had emerged in his suit, black and fitted and ridiculously attractive. It made him realise he’s never done something this formal with the two of them before. Jeonghan, too, in his velvet blue suit, turns heads as they come into the room. It fills him with pride, to be with them both. To be seen with them; to be theirs, and they his.

The wedding is pretty non-traditional, in terms of the ceremony—no priest, just Seungcheol’s father and some self-written vows that are delivered with copious tears. Seungcheol is such a cry-baby, no matter how much he denies it, but it’s endearing, the way he’s clearly bursting with joy. Even if they were Wonwoo and Jeonghan’s friends first, it’s moving to see them up there, so very in love. He puts a hand on Wonwoo’s thigh, patting him. He thinks again that he’d like to do this too, someday.

Then, Wonwoo lets out a noise suspiciously like a sob, and Chan whips around to look at him properly.

“Are you crying too?” he whispers, half-laughing, before his hand drops onto Wonwoo’s seat. He’s gone.

Jeonghan is up at the front, watching the ceremony from the side as per best man duties, which leaves him alone in his seat wondering how the hell Wonwoo just jumped in the middle of a crowded room, and whether it was really because he was watching Seungcheol getting married. He tends to underestimate how sentimental Wonwoo can get. He looks around warily. Everyone’s focused on Joshua’s vows, so by some miracle (and the merit of being sat on the end of the back row) it seems like no one noticed the disappearing man.

He breathes out slow, trying to pay attention to the ceremony again. Wonwoo had better thank his lucky stars he wasn’t asked to be best man up there with Jeonghan. At the front of the room, Seungcheol and Joshua kiss, and the people around him start to clap. He reorients himself, looking ahead again, joining in on the applause. Wonwoo will be back.

He lets Jeonghan know what had happened as soon as the ceremony is over, and they end up tentatively mingling with other guests, looking back to Wonwoo’s seat every so often. He’s never had a jump in such a public space before, and it’s nerve-wracking. He could appear back at any moment, and anyone could see.

But somehow, no one does. He comes back to their side some ten minutes later, brushing off his hands.

“Hello again,” Jeonghan murmurs, and the breath Chan was holding works its way out of his lungs.

“Sorry about that,” Wonwoo says, a little embarrassed.

“Overcome with emotion, Hyung?”

“It was really touching, okay,” Wonwoo grumbles, though he can tell he was surprised by it too. It has been a while since his last jump; it’s kind of relieving to know he can still do it.

“Where did you go?” Jeonghan asks.

“Chan’s childhood. Helped him with a scooter.”

“A scooter?” he asks. He roots around in his memories for a Wonwoo appearance involving a scooter, and nothing comes up.

“Yeah. You had fallen, so I helped you back home.”

He tries to picture it, but comes up blank. He frowns. “Home?”

“Wonwoo!” Seungcheol exclaims, coming up and hugging him, full-bodied. “Jeonghan told me you were crying in the toilets!”

“I wasn’t,” Wonwoo rushes to assure him, shooting a look at Jeonghan. “I just got a little teary.”

“It’s okay! I cried heaps this morning!” he says, smiling fondly over at Joshua, who’s talking with Seungcheol’s brother.

“I really am happy for you,” Wonwoo admits. “You deserve this so much.”

“Thanks, Wonwoo,” he says, cheeks flushed pink, though he must’ve heard those words a thousand times already today. “We’ll see you guys at the reception, right?”

“Of course,” Jeonghan says.

Seungcheol is looking at him. He makes himself nod, digging his way out of his own head. “We’ll be there.”

-

The green post-it note on the kitchen cupboard door says _call Mom on birthday_ in Wonwoo’s writing. Instead of reaching in for the spread he’d come for, he stares at it, wavering.

He can’t help it. All he’s been thinking about since the wedding is family. Wonwoo had mentioned his old family home, but he can’t find the memory connected with it they’re supposed to share; he can’t find any memory of the place at all, actually. It’s been haunting him for weeks. He’s stuck, trying desperately to understand why the gap in his memory about his family home unsettles him so much.

Thinking about it is an understatement, really. He focuses on it so restlessly it rattles him. There’s something wrong. Things are missing, and he’s starting to realise it in everything he does, starting to feel strange in his own skin.

“Hyung,” he says one night, the two of them cuddling on the sofa, waiting for Wonwoo to get home. “Have I ever introduced you to my family?”

“No,” Jeonghan says, after thinking for a moment. “Why?”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. His family. Jeonghan has never met his family, but he’s met the Jeons and Yoons plenty. His family….

Is that what’s missing? Family? Or memories of family?

“You know when we were in Sokcho, and you said that you felt like something is closing in on us?”

Jeonghan’s warm breath skitters over the back of his neck. “Yes?”

“I think I’m forgetting things. I feel like my past is slipping away from me. Home is so far out of reach; I look back, and I can’t see how I got here. When I look forward, I can’t see where we’ll go.”

Jeonghan starts to stroke his back, soothingly. “Is this what’s been on your mind since the wedding?”

He nods into Jeonghan’s soft shirt. “Hyung—I can’t remember if I have a brother. It’s killing me. It feels like I did, or I should, but I don’t know. I can’t—I can’t remember. How can I not remember something like that?”

Jeonghan’s touch is gentle, keeps him grounded. “Why don’t you go home? Find out?”

“I can’t,” he whispers, finally sitting up. “I can’t remember where it is.”

Jeonghan looks at him, eyes wide, and Chan rubs the tears from his face desperately. “What’s happening? This must be something to do with us, right? The three of us, all our weird shit—I’m not sick, or something?”

“No, there’s no way,” Jeonghan says, pulling him into his lap and kissing his forehead, wrapping his arms snug around him. “It’s not you. Hey, don’t cry. We’ll figure this out.”

“What’s happening?” Wonwoo says from where he steps through the doorway. He throws his coat to the side, and he feels the sofa shift as he sits by them. His hand on Chan’s lower back is enough to help him untense.

“Have you ever met my family, Hyung?” he asks, voice wrung out.

“Your family?” Wonwoo frowns. “I…don’t think so? I can’t really remember.”

He can feel Jeonghan tense under him before he speaks. More forgetting. “I think we’ve been putting off figuring out why the three of us are like this for too long. We need to try. Wonwoo, please, we need to try.”

He draws back to look at Jeonghan, taking in a sharp breath. “You think he can find out?”

“I think he’s our best bet,” he says, thumbing a stray tear from his cheek.

They both look at him, and Wonwoo takes a long look at Chan, running his hand through the soft hair at the base of his neck. “Okay,” he says eventually, resigned. “I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” Jeonghan says, determined. “We start tomorrow. We’re going to control this thing before it can control us. Right now, I think we should all go to bed.”

“I’m fine,” he insists, wiping his nose on his sleeve. He hates crying.

“I meant more for me,” Jeonghan says kindly. “I’m going to need a long sleep if I’m going to try and get Wonwoo to do as I say tomorrow.”

“That’s true,” he agrees, laughing a little, though it sounds wet and tired.

“Alright, bed it is,” Wonwoo agrees softly.

He clutches onto Jeonghan, who ambitiously tries to lift him from the sofa, only to stagger two steps towards the bedroom and drop him onto his feet again. He settles for being walked there, Wonwoo’s hand in has, Jeonghan’s weight on his back.

It’s comfortable, lying between them, warm and safe. He doesn’t sleep for a long time.

-

“Right, sit down,” Jeonghan instructs. The living room looks like it does when Chan is doing last minute dance practise, with the table pushed up against the wall, the sofa moved a few feet to the left. “First thing on the list is meditation.”

“Isn’t that a strange thing to start with?” Wonwoo says, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. “Seems like the opposite my standard triggers.”

“Trust me, I’ve thought about this,” Jeonghan says. He looks over his shoulder at Chan. “You want to join us, or just watch?”

“Not the usual context you ask me that,” he says, settling into the displaced sofa. Wonwoo sniggers at him. “For once, I’ll just watch.”

“None of that right now, please,” Jeonghan says, sitting to face Wonwoo in a mirror position. “We’re trying to get into a clear headspace. I tried meditation for a bit as a teenager, when I was trying to figure out if I could control my visions.”

“How did that work out for you?”

“Unsuccessfully, but not many people can control how they dream. Almost everyone can control the direction they travel in.”

“You know that much about travel across time and space, huh?”

“How hard can it be? Be quiet, now. I need you to close your eyes and match my breathing.”

Jeonghan takes a deep breath in, then lets it out slowly. Wonwoo does the same, fighting a smile at first before settling into it quickly. Quiet fills the living room.

“I want you to clear your mind of everything. Just listen to my words, and don’t be concerned with any burdens you might have. You’re free of them right now. Let your mind be at ease. You’re in a comfortable space. You’re safe. You’re relaxed.”

They sit in silence together for a minute or two. Wonwoo’s body is relaxed and still, his breathing slow.

“Good job,” Jeonghan says, smooth and low. “Now I need you to picture something for me. You’ve been to Chan’s childhood home before; I need you to picture it in your mind. Picture Chan, when he was still young, the clearest memory you have of him. Hold those images in your mind. Imagine yourself there, paying him another visit. You’re thinking about it, but you also want it; more than anything, you want to go there. It’s where you’ll be. When you travel, that’s where you’re going to end up.”

Wonwoo doesn’t move, but carries on with his even breathing. Chan’s holding his own breath, not daring to move.

“Take ten deep breaths in and out for me, holding those thoughts in your mind.”

Wonwoo starts to follow his instructions, taking a breath in, breath out. Slowly, Jeonghan stands from his seated position; very careful not to make a noise, he steps around Wonwoo until he’s stood behind him. Wonwoo is on his sixth breath when Jeonghan pounces, yelling and grabbing his shoulders aggressively. Wonwoo physically jolts, eyes snapping open right before he disappears, leaving Jeonghan to hit his hands and knees on the floor.

“Hyung!” he says, letting out a laugh of shock.

“I know,” he says, pulling a face and sitting back, but Chan can tell he’s pleased with himself. “He needed a trigger, and I thought that was better than slapping him, or something. I’ll make it up to him when he’s back.”

“You did it!” he says, amazed. He had only been half-hopeful for Jeonghan’s plan, but here they are, successful on their first try.

“I haven’t done it yet. We have to wait for him to come back, to see if he actually went to where wanted.”

“Right,” he says, trying not to smile too wide. “Want to put food on for when he gets back?”

Wonwoo being away somewhere unknown is always a little nerve-wracking, and he keeps an ear out the entire time they watch over the stir-fry. Wonwoo hasn’t appeared back by the time it’s finished, so they sit down to eat, saving plenty for him in the pan.

By the time they hit the hour mark of waiting, the anxiety really starts to settle in. Talk peters out between them, and by the time their plates are empty, he realises they’re both sat facing the living room, looking around and waiting. Wonwoo’s typical jumps aren’t more than half an hour. Sometimes they only take a few minutes.

“Has he ever said how long his longest jump was?”

“He said two hours, once,” he says, biting at his fingernail. “Once he was at the funfair with me for a fair while, but it couldn’t have been much longer than that. That hasn’t happened for him yet, though.”

“Two hours,” Jeonghan murmurs, checking the time on his phone. “You want to watch a movie? He’ll probably be back by the end.”

He isn’t back by the end. Nor is he back for dinner; night rolls around, and the flat is still too big, too empty. He and Jeonghan sit close together, not speaking much, but feeding off each other’s anxiety.

They put another movie on, wilfully ignoring the late hour, pushing back sleep until Chan can’t keep his eyes open anymore. Not that he thinks he’d be able to sleep if he tried; his chest feels painful with the stress of waiting at this point.

“I shouldn’t have asked him to do this,” Jeonghan murmurs into his hair at the twelve-hour mark. He’s not really following the movie, and the sound of his voice startles him.

“Stop,” Chan says, reaching his arms further around Jeonghan’s waist. “You couldn’t have known.”

“He’s always been wary of doing this,” he murmurs. “I should’ve trusted him more. Of course he knows his ability better than anyone.”

“If we hadn’t tried, we’d always be wondering what would’ve happened if we did,” he reasons. “With the way we’ve all been feeling lately, it was inevitable we’d try something like this.”

He can hear Jeonghan swallow behind him. “Something’s gone wrong. He should be back.”

“Maybe he’s a little lost. He’s taking the reins for the first time, and he is a time traveller, after all. He might have messed up the return journey, missed his mark by a few hours, or something. Don’t think the worst yet.”

“He’s a time traveller,” Jeonghan says, pained, like he’s taking it in for the first time. “Why did I ever think this was a good idea?”

They must fall asleep at some point, because he wakes in a daze, Netflix paused on the screen in front of him and Jeonghan moving from under him. He stirs, trying to orient himself in the dark living room. “Hyung?”

He hears a ragged breath, and reaches blindly for the lamp on the coffee table. When he finds it, Jeonghan is illuminated, sitting on the edge of the sofa with his face in his hands.

“Hyung?” he asks again, resting a tentative hand on his shoulder.

Jeonghan looks up at him, face drawn, eyes red. “Had a dream.”

“What happened?”

“It was the forest dream again,” he says. “Fuck. It’s still there.”

Still in his future.

“Don’t think about it,” he says. “It won’t help. Do you want some water, or something?”

“Yeah. Please.”

He rubs at his eyes as he walks through to their kitchen, blinking into the bright light he switches on. He doesn’t notice the kid stood by the fridge until he nearly walks into him.

He yells when he sees the little boy standing there, heart racing at the surprise of it, and the kid looks sufficiently scared, backing up against one of the cupboard doors. Looking up at him, he sticks his sleeve in his mouth to bite at nervously. Chan forces himself to back up and take a breath.

“What is it?” Jeonghan says, coming across the room behind him quickly. “What? Are you okay?”

“It’s okay,” he says, dropping onto his haunches to be eye-level with the kid. “It’s just Wonwoo. Right? You’re Wonwoo?”

Wonwoo, who looks no more than four years old, looks up at the both of them, eyes wide. Slowly, he nods.

“Sorry for yelling,” he says, trying to smile at him, though he feels like he might throw up. Did they do this? Is this their punishment for trying to mess with time? “I didn’t see you at first. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Wonwoo eyes him up, before looking back up to Jeonghan again. Jeonghan slowly sinks down until he’s sat on the ground, staring at Wonwoo. “Oh my God.”

“Are you okay?” he asks Wonwoo, gently. “Did you just get here?”

Wonwoo nods again, still chewing on the sleeve of his sweater. Then he drops it from his mouth, wringing it between his hands and looking between them both again before he speaks quietly. “Mommy told me to stay hidden when I jump somewhere I don’t know. I didn’t know you’d come in here, but it was too dark to hide somewhere else.”

“That’s good advice to follow,” he says. “But you don’t have to worry this time. You don’t know us yet, but we know you. We’re your friends.”

He looks unsure. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. That’s how we know your name, and about your time travel and everything. You don’t have to be scared. Do you want food, or something?”

Wonwoo nods, more confident this time, accepting the explanation easily. Chan stands again to reach around in the fridge for something a 4-year-old would want to eat. The best they have is a couple of strawberry yogurts.

“Wonwoo…” Jeonghan starts tentatively. “Do you know where you were before this? Where did you come from?”

“The kitchen,” Wonwoo says, accepting the yogurt and small spoon handed to him. “Daddy dropped a plate on the floor and it smashed. It was really loud, and I guess it surprised me.”

“Really?” Chan says. “Other than that, was it an ordinary day?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says, shrugging. He takes his first spoonful of yogurt and partially misses, smearing a little around his mouth. “I didn’t want to go to school, but it was okay. Mingyu drew me a picture.”

“Cool,” Jeonghan says faintly, looking at Chan. Maybe not their Wonwoo, then. Maybe just another past visit, timed right when Chan had needed him to show up. Not too surprising, considering their track record.

They sit with four-year-old Wonwoo, in their quiet kitchen at some ungodly hour of the morning, and watch him eat his yogurt. After that, he follows them into the living room, sits between them on the sofa, and attentively watches the kids show they put on for him. He disappears before the end of the second episode.

Chan looks around when he feels his weight disappear, half-hoping he’ll see a replacement some twenty years older.

“God,” Jeonghan says, pausing the show and sinking back into the sofa. “I hate this.”

“At least we didn’t push him back into being four years old,” Chan says, laying down across Jeonghan’s legs. The early morning sunrise is starting to peek through the blinds. “He had me worried for a few minutes there.”

“Small blessings,” Jeonghan agrees. “I think the last twenty-four hours have made me age about twelve years. Wonwoo had better get back before I start getting wrinkly.”

“Don’t joke about things like that,” he says, only half playful. “You never know what could happen.”

-

It takes three days for Wonwoo to come back.

They’ve taken to sleeping out in the living room, because they know that’s where he’ll appear when he shows up. It’s why he’s not sure where he is for a few seconds when a loud noise startles him from sleep in the middle of the night; Jeonghan is one step ahead of him, reaching forwards for the lamp. When the soft light illuminates the room, they’re welcomed with the sight of a body on the floor.

“Oh my God,” he says, and Chan is already up and across the room, dropping to the floor and turning him over. It’s Wonwoo, dressed in the same clothes had had been in three days ago, and thankfully still in one piece. He checks his pulse—it’s fast, but he looks so out of it, eyes half open and roaming a little, but he doesn’t respond to Jeonghan at his other side, calling his name.

“Wonwoo? Baby, please say something if you can hear me. A noise, anything. Wonwoo, come on.”

He blinks slowly, unfocused as he looks up at Chan, who brushes his hair from his eyes. “Hyung? Are you alright?”

He moves his mouth slowly, like he’s trying to speak, but he can’t remember how. He blinks again and rolls his head on the floor to look over at Jeonghan.

“Hey,” Jeonghan says, taking his hand and trying to smile down at him. “I’m really glad you came back to us.”

Wonwoo groans at that, a noise in his throat that’s low and undefined. He turns like he’s trying to push himself up, but he can’t lift his own weight, hands weak against the floor.

“Wait, let us help you,” Chan says, pulling an arm up over his shoulders. “Hyung, let’s sit him up.”

Jeonghan takes his other arm, and the two of them hoist Wonwoo up onto the sofa. He can’t seem to help them much, his legs dragging on the floor and head lolling against his chest. “I’ll get you some water,” Jeonghan says, restless, turning to run into the kitchen.

“It’s okay if you’re a bit disoriented. Don’t try to force yourself,” he says, and Wonwoo looks back at him, swallowing once.

“I—I—” he stutters, and Chan finds his hand, squeezes limp fingers.

“Yes?” he says, encouraging. Jeonghan reappears with the water.

“You want this?” he asks, and Wonwoo moves his head in a stiff nod.

He sits beside him and puts the glass to his mouth, and Wonwoo takes a sip, lowering his head when he’s had enough. It looks like it’s difficult for him to even take that small amount.

“I’m…” he manages, head hanging and breathing heavy. “B-back.”

At that, Jeonghan bursts into tears, grasping at Wonwoo’s arm and burying his face in his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he cries. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. I’m sorry.”

“Don—don’t,” Wonwoo slurs. “Hy-ung.”

“C’mon, Hyung, he’s gonna be okay,” Chan says, reaching across to rub at Jeonghan’s arm. “He’s back. It’s okay.”

“S-sleep,” Wonwoo says, tilting his head back onto the sofa, eyes closing again.

“Should we?” he asks, looking at Jeonghan. “What if it’s like a concussion?”

“No,” Wonwoo says, more clearly. “Sleep.”

“Okay,” Jeonghan says, giving in immediately. “Let’s go to the bed.”

Between them, they haul Wonwoo into their bed, where he passes out immediately. Chan lifts the glasses from his face and places them on the bedside table, taking a long look at him.

“Should we sleep in shifts?” he suggests. “So that we can keep an eye on him?”

“Alright,” Jeonghan says, wiping his eyes. “You first. I’m not going to sleep for a while anyway.”

He lays down by Wonwoo, curling up into his side. After a moment, he reaches across the bed to take Jeonghan’s hand, stroking circles into the skin there.

Sleep comes surprisingly quickly, with the knowledge that Wonwoo is alive, that he’d found his way back to them. It’s enough, for now.

Jeonghan ends up letting him sleep through to the morning, though he looks dead tired because of it.

“You should’ve woken me up!” Chan scolds. “You’re just going to upset yourself more if you don’t sleep!”

“I’ll nap later,” Jeonghan says. From the way he’s lax against the headboard, the nap might be sooner rather than later. Hopefully he’ll rest once Wonwoo wakes up.

It’s hard to believe he’s really back—the past three days have stretched on like forever. He pats Wonwoo’s side once, gentle enough that it wouldn’t wake him, but enough to feel that he’s real. “I’ll make some breakfast,” he says, though he doesn’t really want to let Wonwoo out of his sight. Jeonghan desperately needs the coffee.

Wonwoo sleeps through the morning and part of the afternoon, too, unmoving but breathing steadily from his place on the bed. Jeonghan nods off around lunchtime, but sleeps lightly, waking up again when Wonwoo starts to groan and shift, rousing from his long sleep.

“Hyung?” Chan says, ready to brace him should he need help. Wonwoo surprises him by pushing himself up from the bed easily, sitting up and looking around, hair a mess and bedsheets hanging from his shoulders.

He proceeds to groan and stretch the sleep out of him. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he says. “You’re really back?”

“Yeah,” he says, and amazingly, he smiles. “God, I’m glad to be back.”

Chan tackles him in a hug, clutching onto him tight. “Don’t do that again! Oh my God, we were so worried, we had no idea what to think when you were gone so long!” He presses a few kisses into his hair before he pulls back, feeling Jeonghan hovering to the side.

Jeonghan takes his turn to hug him too, arms looping around his shoulders gently, but holding him there like he’ll never let go.

“How long was I gone?” Wonwoo asks, holding Jeonghan back around his waist.

“Three days,” they say in unison.

“Three days?”

“Yeah,” Chan says. “How long was it for you?”

“Well… I don’t really know.” Jeonghan sits back to watch him speak. “It was really strange. I had no sense of time there. When I first came back, I think I was adjusting to being in the normal time and space dimensions again. That’s why I was so out of it.”

“Where did you go?” Jeonghan asks.

“I don’t really know that either,” he admits. “All I know is that it was dark. And while I was there, I felt like I was falling. I was trying to figure out how to move through it, but I couldn’t do it. I was just stuck in the nothingness. It felt like I was there forever at the time, but now that I’m back, it feels like no time at all.”

“Was anyone else there?” Jeonghan asks

He thinks on it for a moment, mouth slightly parted. “I think there was someone. But now I can’t remember who. I can’t remember anything but the blackness, and the falling.”

“Was it scary?” he asks.

He nods. “Yeah. It felt like I was trapped. I thought I’d never get out.”

“But you did,” Jeonghan says. “You made it back here. Do you think you figured out how to move through it to find us again?”

Wonwoo looks up at him with panic in his face. “Please don’t ask me to try that again.”

“No, no, no.” Jeonghan says, coming forwards to hug him again. “I didn’t mean that. God knows my heart couldn’t take it. I really am sorry for asking you to go.”

“Don’t be. I’m sorry I couldn’t do it.”

“It’s okay. It was a lot to ask,” Chan says, joining in on the hug from the side. “We were so afraid when you didn’t come back. I’m so relieved you found your way out.”

“I’m sorry I was gone so long,” Wonwoo says again, looping one arm around Chan. “Did anything happen while I was gone?”

“Had a visit from you. You ate a yogurt and watched Pororo with us.”

“Really? How old was I?”

“Toddler, I think. Really cute, though.”

“We thought we’d made you into a baby for a while,” Jeonghan says, shivering. “It was horrible.”

“Oh, God,” Wonwoo laughs. “That is scary.”

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Jeonghan says again, rubbing Wonwoo’s back slowly, still holding him in the hug. Wonwoo doesn’t complain, though Chan can see him eyeing up the long-cold coffee on the side.

“I’ll get you some food,” Chan offers. “Rest some more, if you need to. We have time.”

“Thanks,” he says, smiling gratefully. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” he says, patting him once before shuffling out of the bed and leaving the room.

-

The thing is, the whole incident doesn’t do a thing to ease his worries. He still can’t remember much about his childhood, or his family. They still don’t know where Jeonghan and Wonwoo’s abilities came from, or why they brought them all together. The only thing Wonwoo’s three-day freefall through spacetime has taught them is that they aren’t in control, at all.

It’s seeing Wonwoo’s family that really kicks it all off. All his aunts and uncles and cousins and indistinct relatives are gathered together for a Christmas get-together that Wonwoo and his boyfriends had been cordially invited to. There’s so many of them, and he flits from room to room uncomfortably, exchanging small talk as best he can. He’s struggling to hold a real conversation with anyone; he’s too distracted, has been for a while, and it’s grown worse since their failed reconnaissance mission.

He can’t help but notice that no one ever brings up his parents. No one asked him if he was seeing them for Christmas, and he himself didn’t even think about it before the wedding incident. It’s not that he can’t remember his parents—it’s that no one even acknowledges them, or the fact that he should have them. Like they don’t exist, and that it’s a universally accepted truth: Lee Chan doesn’t have parents. No past. Nothing.

He also doesn’t understand how he’s only just realising for the first time that he doesn’t have parents. It sounds ridiculous, because everyone has parents, one way or another. But he has nothing. He only has gaps in history, no mom or dad, no siblings, no childhood home he can really remember. He doesn’t know what to do about it. How can there be nothing there? There must be something. He’s a human being who grew up to this point, and he knows that because Wonwoo was there for parts of it, and he must have childhood friends other than Seungkwan.

Only he sits there in the living room crowded with Jeon family members and racks his brain and can’t come up with a school, a friendship group, a single name other than that one. Why is it that Seungkwan is the only person left from his childhood? What happened for there to be no one else left, and for him not to _notice_ until now?

He pulls his phone out. It’s when he’s scrolling through his messages he realises he has no chat with Seungkwan—he doesn’t have any contact for him at all, actually. There’s no contact for his parents, either, except Seungkwan is still clear in his mind. He can remember him just fine. He saw him… when did he last see him? A while ago now.

His phone slips from his hand. He realises he doesn’t even know his surname. He’s always been Seungkwan, just Seungkwan, the boy from down the road, the friend in all his classes, the one who’d followed him to university.

He stands abruptly, startling the girl to his left before he politely pushing through the room, on the search for Jeonghan. Wonwoo had jumped somewhere else an hour or two ago, triggered by his anxiety in this busy, hot room. That’s a little nerve-wracking in itself, but at least he knows it’s an ordinary jump. He had recognised the Christmas sweater; he should be back at the funfair right about now.

He’s met by Jeon after Jeon until spots his boyfriend headed into the empty kitchen. When he follows in after him, he’s pulling two beers from the fridge.

“Hyung,” he says, curling his hand around the fridge door.

“Chan,” Jeonghan says agreeably.

“Have I ever introduced you to any of my childhood friends?”

Jeonghan looks up at him as he moves over to a drawer to find a bottle opener. Chan shuts the fridge door to follow after him. “No, I don’t think so. Are you having trouble remembering them too?”

“Have I even mentioned anyone to you?”

“No?”

“Not even Seungkwan?”

Jeonghan shakes his head. “I’ve never heard that name before.”

“You’ve never met Seungkwan,” he says, half in a daze, resting his weight against the countertop. “Never even heard of him?”

“No. Why? Is he important?” Jeonghan has the bottle caps off in two swift movements.

“He’s been my friend for… my whole life. He was one of my roommates in university.”

“Hey,” Jeonghan says, pulling at his arm gently to make him look up into his face. “Are you okay?”

He puts on a smile, as best he can. “Yeah, I’m fine. Go and give Jihoon his beer.”

Jeonghan, of course, knows he’s not fine. “Are you coming back through to the living room?”

“I will,” he says, running his hand along the fridge door with vague intention. “I’m going to pick up a drink. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Okay,” Jeonghan says, though his eyes still pierce him, searching for answers. “Stick around, okay? Until Wonwoo gets back, I only have you.”

“I know. Same to you.”

Jeonghan leaves the kitchen to join the muted voices in the living room. Chan stands staring into the fridge, blindly picks out a coke, and shuts the fridge door again. Looks at the coke can without really seeing it, and puts it on the side.

He takes a deep breath. “Seungkwan?”

“Yes?”

He turns, and there he is, leaning against the countertop. He looks the same as ever, neat clothes, parted hair, knowing smile. Looking right at him.

“Who are you?” he breathes. “What are you?”

Seungkwan sidles over to the countertop in front of him slowly, carefully. The closer he comes, the more uncomfortable he feels. “Big question. I’m a lot of things.” Picks up the coke can in front of him and pops the tab. “What are you asking about specifically?” He puts the can to his lips and takes a sip.

He knows he’s playing with him, like he always is, but he needs real answers this time. He’s figured it out. Seungkwan is the anomaly in his life. He just needs to know what that means. “Why can’t I remember anything about my past apart from you?”

Seungkwan lowers the can. Follows it with his eyes as he puts it down on the side. “Believe me, it’s not intentional.”

“It’s your fault, isn’t it?”

He nods slowly. “You don’t remember them because they never existed. Not anymore. I have to survive on something.”

He stares. “What are you talking about?”

Seungkwan sighs. “I’m not as human as I appear. My kind… we feed on human experience. We need it, to grow big enough and take our place up there, in faraway space.”

“What are you?”

He shrugs, as if the question is difficult. “Human scientists would call me an O-type star, but my potential is a lot bigger than that. If we choose a life force to grow with, we can manifest, become stable, and grow into a celestial body of our own.”

“Like you are now?”

He laughs. “No. This is nothing. I mean that I can become my own planet, like earth. If we don’t choose someone to bond with like that we’d eventually collapse into a black hole and die young.”

“And the person you chose—”

“Is you. Though you’ve figured that out, right? That you’re special.”

“Special…” he says, stepping back. “More like cursed.”

Seungkwan looks at him, and it’s so earnest. “Listen, I’ve not done anything harmful, I promise. I’m not here to hurt anyone. It’s normal for us to feed on the life left behind by our human. By the time humans get old, they can’t remember anything anyway. It’s more useful as food to us than it is as memories to you. Then, when the human is old and dying at the end of their life, we take the memory of the human as a whole. It’s a merciful process. Nobody remembers they were alive, so nobody feels the pain of their death.”

His breath catches in his throat. “You’re going to kill me?”

Seungkwan steps closer, appealing to him. “It’s not killing! It’s saving! With your life, my growth would be complete—I would take you with me, and we’d create something new together. We would fulfil our potential.”

His head is spinning. “God, you’re insane. This is insane. Are you the reason Jeonghan and Wonwoo are always coming back to me? Because I have you attached, eating away at my history?”

“You can give yourself some credit, you know. They probably like you as a person, too.” When he gets no response, he sighs, like Chan is being difficult. “It is a part of it. Or it must be—I don’t know how they are the way they are. I’ve been trying to figure it out myself. I’ll tell you what though, they’re an annoyance. They enrich your timeline so much, especially Wonwoo… but it’s so much harder to eat up when it’s jumbled and foreseen. Makes it all jagged and strange.”

His heart is loud in his chest. “Every time you were worried about my relationship with them, I thought you were concerned for me because you’re my friend, and I was getting involved with a time-traveller and a foreseer. But it was selfishness after all, right? Did you ever actually care about me?”

Seungkwan loses the last of his easy countenance, the display of lightness to his shoulders. They fall, and he seems lost. “I’m your friend, Chan, I always have been. Sometimes my kind are referred to as guardian angels, because we look after our human, make sure they grow old and live a full life.”

“So that you can exploit them!” he shouts, head hot. There’s fire in his veins, he’s sure—he’s never felt anger like this.

“What do you want from me?” Seungkwan shouts back. “It’s a matter of life and death! It’s not like this is a choice for me either!”

“You’re taking my life from me to feed your own. You expect me to lie down and be happy about that?”

“Most people don’t even notice. You’re a special case. Too much time with Yoon Jeonghan—he sees far too much.”

He wants to throw something at him. “I don’t want to hear this. Tell me how to get rid of you and bring my family back.”

Seungkwan walks backwards until he’s stood against the counter on the other side of the room. “Believe me, I wish there were a way for both of us to get what we want.” He says it so gently, like breaking bad news to a child. Like he really means it.

He swallows. “They’re not coming back, are they?”

Seungkwan shakes his head.

He blinks away the tears his vision. Though he doesn’t remember his parents, his siblings, anyone he used to know, he can still mourn for them. The not knowing is what hurts the most. “What about them?” He gestures with an unsteady hand towards the living room, where Wonwoo’s family are celebrating together. “My new family? Will you take them from me too?”

Seungkwan looks at him. “You already know the answer.”

“Wonwoo and Jeonghan?”

“You’ll get a long time with them first.”

He shakes his head. “You can’t.”

“I have to.”

He steps forwards again, fists clenched. One step, two, and then Seungkwan disappears from in front of him. “I’m going to kill you!” he yells into the empty room, not caring who hears.

Seungkwan’s voice sounds from behind him, and he spins around to face him again. “The only other option is to come early. We can go now, if you like.”

His heart skips a beat. “What?”

“The game is up. You figured me out. You get an early pass to the end, if you want it—I’ve taken enough to become a small planet, at least. This is the best compromise I can offer.”

He stays very still. “Will it save them?”

“Yes,” Seungkwan says, stepping towards him slowly. “I won’t take anything else from around you. Just you.”

“You swear they’ll be okay?” he breathes. Seungkwan steps forwards again.

“Yeah,” he smiles. “You will be, too. You’ll get to see the stars.”

“Go to hell,” he chokes, throat tight.

Seungkwan’s smile fades, and steps closer again. They’re close, now, centimetres apart. “There is no hell. Only me.”

“Chan?” Jeonghan says from the doorway. “God, I just got this really bad instinct out of nowhere. Are you okay?”

Seungkwan’s arms reach around his shoulders in a hug. “Time to go.”

Chan flinches, but doesn’t pull away from him. “Hyung!” he cries, the tears spilling freely now. “I love you! Please tell Wonwoo! Please don’t forget!”

“What?” Jeonghan says, moving across the room on full alert, but his eyes slide right past Seungkwan. “Chan, what is it?”

He reaches forwards to grasp his outstretched hand, and then—

And then—

Jeonghan stops, hand wavering. Blinks, looks down at the counter, and picks up the can of coke in front of him. Takes a sip, and grimaces at it; it’s not his drink. He’s not sure why he was reaching out for it. The kitchen is empty, and he can’t remember what he came in here to get.

That’s strange. He doesn’t usually forget things like that. He scans the room, waiting for something to trigger his memory, but nothing comes to mind. He looks down at the can in his hand, and turns to go back into the living room.

He hopes Wonwoo will come back soon. It gets lonely when he’s not around.

“Is this yours?” He offers Myungho the can as he passes him, but he shakes his head, showing him the drink in his hand. Jeonghan frowns down at the can, as if it’s mortally offending him.

With a snap, Wonwoo appears right in front of him, stumbling in place. The party hat he had on earlier is gone, but his cheeks are happily flushed, and he’s holding a cup of half-finished slushie in one hand. He has a broad smile on his face, and he laughs to himself as he clutches onto Jeonghan, catching his balance.

“You’re back!” he says. “You look like you had a good time.”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo smiles. “I went to the funfair with Chan.”

“With who?”

“What?”

“Chan. Who is that?”

“Who?” Wonwoo says, the smile slipping from his face. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who saw that one coming?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: theres a sort of fight scene i guess in this part? it's not graphic or dark really but someone told me they had to read it with their lights on so i thought i'd add a mild warning

The New Year’s period passes unnervingly. Everything feels off. Wonwoo starts jumping uncontrollably, set off by the smallest things, and he feels so lonely when he’s gone. When he gets back, it’s all the more unsettling—sometimes he can’t remember where he’s been or what he’s done. A lot of the time he just hops a few minutes into the future, or past, which can get confusing and irritating for everyone involved.

His instincts are on the fry, too, bad vibes cropping up everywhere and giving him no real result, no clear reason why he feels like everything is wrong. He doesn’t know what exactly he’s waiting for. Maybe for his dreams to give him something of real worth, something he can trust in, but all his dreams are murky, these days. Some days he wakes up not sure if he’s dreamed at all, but feeling restless as if he has.

On one of those nights, tired of tossing and turning in the dark, he gets up in the middle of the night to get himself a drink. He needs a distraction. He’s started hating how the bed feels, too, like he’s sleeping in someone else’s bed without their permission.

He stubs his toe on the corner of the sofa as he’s passing by it, hissing and stumbling whilst keeping as quiet as possible, aware of Wonwoo still sleeping. He glares at the sofa as he leaves it behind. Who put it there, anyway?

Grumbling to himself, he fills up a cup of milk and sticks it in the microwave to warm. While he waits, he stares at the shopping list stuck on the fridge door. Looks in the fridge, scribbles a few additions that he can see at a glance. More ketchup. More meat. More cheese. A few other things from the top of his head. The microwave pings.

He pulls the cup out, takes a sip, and throws the empty milk carton in the trash. Picks up the pen again to add milk, but there’s no space left on the paper. He reads back, and the list says:

_Eggs, Bread, Ketchup, Meat, Cheese, I love you, Please tell Wonwoo, Please don’t forget_

He stares at the list. Had he written that? He doesn’t remember, but it’s his handwriting.

Goosebumps prickle at his arms. What does that mean? Don’t forget to tell Wonwoo he loves him? That’s something they say to each other often. Why would he write that?

He crumples up the paper and starts afresh, tracing the words of the food carefully. Adds milk at the bottom. Sticks it back on the fridge, but can’t help but stare at the crumpled up paper on the side. Don’t forget. Don’t forget what?

He grabs the paper again, taking it and his lukewarm milk back to bed. Clutches it tight, and tries to focus on the words, bring the memory back to him. He falls asleep holding the paper, and has dreams he can’t remember.

-

“Doesn’t something feel wrong to you?”

The words leave his mouth of their own accord. They’re halfway around the grocery store together, picking items out from the shelves of tins.

“Hm?” Wonwoo looks up from the tinned soup he’s holding. “Are the brands different?”

“Not about the soup,” he sighs. “Everything. Our life. It’s felt wrong since Christmas. Especially between us.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t. What feels wrong?”

He grits his teeth and looks around. “Don’t you feel like something is missing? Everything feels so empty. There are things missing from the house, but when I go to look for them, I can’t place what it is I’m looking for. The bed feels too big, the fridge feels too empty, there’s that big space in the living room and I can’t fathom for the life of me why we’d leave it there, why the sofa isn’t just a few feet to the left—”

“I feel like filling the fridge isn’t the issue here. What do you actually mean?” Wonwoo puts down his tinned soup to give him his full attention.

“I mean, you came back from the funfair and mention the name Chan, and I’m holding that stupid coke can that doesn’t belong to anyone, and suddenly we’re both standing there with something gone from our memory, right? And I know that sort of thing happens to you sometimes, but it never happens to me. I never forget. I haven’t been able to shake the feeling away since, either.”

Wonwoo stares. “You think we’re missing someone?”

“Yes,” he breathes. He knew that leap wasn’t unreasonable, but he hadn’t wanted to say it directly—Wonwoo must feel it too. “Someone’s missing. Chan, whoever he is.”

“How? Wouldn’t we know?”

“You’ve been forgetting things for a while. Is it that crazy that we might both forget the same thing? Maybe he was a time traveller, like you, and he jumped too far. Slipped out of time, or something crazy like that.”

A woman walking up the aisle stares at them as she passes, shifting her basket into her other hand.

“Shall we discuss this at home?” Wonwoo asks, putting a hand on his back to steer him back to their cart.

He doesn’t care much for social niceties. Especially not when he’s onto something like this. “God, this makes so much sense. It’s why the flat seems so empty. We were living with a whole other person.”

“How do you know we were living with him?”

“I just know it. I can feel it. My instincts have always been good, Wonwoo, and I definitely trust them over my mind right now.”

“You know how crazy this sounds, right? That a person has been erased from existence? Someone we used to know?”

“Don’t start getting judgemental about what’s crazy now, darling—aren’t we the exact sort of people something like this would happen to? We have to do something about it. What if we can find him?”

“How would we even go about that? Finding someone who we don’t remember, who might not even exist? It’s impossible.”

“We didn’t think we had another boyfriend until just now, but it’s a wonder what you can make happen when you put your mind to it.”

“Another—what?”

“What if we use your ability to get him back?”

As soon as he says it, he regrets it.

Wonwoo snaps his mouth shut, staring at him. “Are you serious?”

He shakes his head, trying to clear his mind. Too far. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I got ahead of myself. I’ll think of something else.”

Wonwoo stares. “You’re really serious about this? You must be, to think that’s an option after last time.”

He reaches out to grasp his hand. “It’s not. I shouldn’t have said it. I wouldn’t ask you to do that again.”

Wonwoo grabs their cart with the other hand, white-knuckled. “Okay. Good.”

“Sorry,” he says again, slipping his arm around his waist and kissing him on the mouth. “We’ll find Chan another way.”

-

He does it again a few days later, only this time, he doesn’t realise it until Wonwoo calls him out for it.

“What did you need to tell me?” he asks one morning, peeking around the bedroom doorway as they’re both stumbling around the apartment, getting ready for work.

“What?” he asks through a yawn, yanking his shirt over his head.

Wonwoo holds up a post-it note, pink, the colour of the pad in the bathroom. “Found this on the mirror.”

The post-it reads: _I love you, Please tell Wonwoo, Please don’t forget_.

He takes it from his hand, staring at it.

“Hyung?” Wonwoo says, after he’s silent for a few moments. “I was just trying to get you to say you love me.”

“I don’t remember writing this,” he murmurs, and it’s the scariest thing ever. He doesn’t forget. He never forgets. But there they are, those same words again, printed in his handwriting.

“You don’t?” Wonwoo asks.

“I did it on the shopping list too. Had to throw it away.” He places the post-it down gently, as if it might detonate on him. “I don’t know what it means.”

He does it again at work. Fills in a form wrong and has to start all over again. Then again when he’s texting Wonwoo on his way home—finds himself writing _I love you, please don’t forget_. He deletes it and writes in _omw home_ and pockets his phone, biting at the inside of his mouth.

Wonwoo greets him home with a kiss, and Jeonghan says, _I love you_ , and wills himself to remember.

-

He wakes up in the middle of the night again, the images of the dream fading fast. He can’t catch anything from it, but the sense of unease sticks. He sits up in bed, suddenly queasy, and walks through to the bathroom, in case he’s going to be sick.

On the bathroom door is a post-it note. He rips it off without reading it, because he knows what it will say. Sits in front of the toilet, the cold bathroom tiles sending shivers through his warm skin. He crumples the post-it in his hand, and starts to cry.

He’s not really sure why. The feeling isn’t like sickness—it’s a heaviness, deep in his gut, weighing down his chest. Like how he’d felt in the weeks after his Grandmother’s death. Grief. He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, and curls up under the sink, his body shaking with the tears, and he doesn’t know why.

Maybe he’s dead. Maybe Chan has died, and gone to time-traveller heaven, and something happened on the way to fuck with their memory. Maybe that’s why he feels like the missing thing is so distant, so unknowable. He’s off planet, far out of their reach.

So what does that mean for him? How long can he obsess over something that’s not here, and can’t be brought back?

“Hyung?” Wonwoo says from the door, coming over to crouch down by him. “What is it? Are you sick?”

“He loves you,” he says, throat tight enough to squeeze his voice, high and despairing. “I think that’s what I have to tell you. Not that I love you, but that he does.”

“Is this still about Chan?” He puts the back of his hand to Jeonghan’s forehead. “You’re burning hot, Hyung. Did you throw up?”

He shakes his head, looking down at the tiles and sitting back, the tears slowing now. “Just feel like shit.”

Wonwoo stays beside him, reaching up for some toilet paper to wipe his nose and eyes with. “This thing is going to eat you up if you let it.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” he admits. “If he’s dead, maybe I can try something like a séance, but I don’t have much hope.”

“Dead?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Where else could he be that he’s not coming back? Why else do I feel so hopeless?”

Wonwoo looks at him, sighing heavily. He shifts to sit properly on his butt, crossing his legs under him and sitting in front of Jeonghan.

“What if I went to look?” he says, eventually.

“What?”

“What if I tried to use my ability again?”

Jeonghan shakes his head. “No, I told you. I didn’t mean that. Not when it’s so dangerous for you.”

“It would be my choice, not yours. I think you need closure. I should at least try.”

“No,” he says again. “I don’t want to lose both of you.”

“You won’t. Time runs in my blood. It won’t kill me. I’ll come back to you again.”

He stares. He’s willing to take on that hellish experience all over again, because Jeonghan got a little queasy?

“You said you had other ideas, right? We’ll try one of them. I can’t let you stew like this if I can do something to help.”

He thinks about it. One of his newer ideas is a pretty risk-free method. Well, as risk-free as you can get with time travel. He doesn’t have high hopes it will work, but if it does… it could be the answer to everything.

“Are you sure?” he whispers. Despite himself, he can feel his hopes rising up, little by little.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says. “I want to, for you. And Chan, if he means this much to you.”

“To us,” Jeonghan corrects. “He’s important to us both, I know it. I hope you’ll remember.”

Wonwoo nods. “I’ll do my best.”

-

His nerves are going crazy again the next morning, but he still feels better than he has in weeks. For the first time since their last attempt at this, he has a hope.

“So, I have something kind of different in mind this time. You know how sniffer dogs work, right?”

“You’re kidding,” Wonwoo deadpans from behind his early morning coffee. “If you’re going to get me to smell something...”

“Well, I was hoping you’d do more than that. Your ability works on emotion, so I need you to use a meaningful object to guide you, and to try to connect with the object emotionally more than physically.” He pulls out his secret weapon: Wonwoo’s baby blanket, the one he’d left behind during his baby jump from years ago.

Wonwoo takes it uncertainly. “Why this?”

“You’re going to try and visit yourself as a baby, first. Lie down on the sofa.”

He sighs and puts his mug down to obey, laying back on the sofa carefully.

“Okay. Now the idea is to hold onto it and try to feel a connection with it. It’s yours, from all those years ago. Connect it with the time, the place you want to be.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me to close my eyes and breathe deeply?”

“No. I’m not going to try and trigger you this time. I think that’s where we went wrong. You’ve got to want it—really want it, to make yourself go there. Not be pushed into it by me or anyone else.”

Wonwoo doesn’t look convinced, but he didn’t think he would be. That’s okay. As long as he puts his energy into believing he can go, he doesn’t mind if he’s uneasy at first.

“Just do your best. Do what you think is right. It’s okay if nothing happens, but focus as if it will. Believe that it will. Put your heart into it.”

Wonwoo nods and closes his eyes. “I’ll do my best, captain.”

“Good work, soldier,” he smiles, standing up to leave him to it. He’s going with opposite tactics to last time, and that means giving him space. Now it’s up to Wonwoo to do the rest.

-

He thinks he might’ve fallen asleep holding the baby blanket. In his dream, the sofa sucks him in, through the cushions and out the other side, floating through blackness. He’s still holding the blanket. He remembers where he’s trying to go, and sees a light ahead; it looks warm, appealing. He wills himself that way, swimming through a blackness that pulls at him. He pushes right back, and emerges through the other side, waking up into the light.

His eyes open, and he sits up, with an apology on the tip of his tongue. “I think I fell—”

He’s stopped abruptly by the sight of a familiar, old living room. Not the flat. Home.

There’s a woman’s scream from behind him, and it makes him scramble up, arms in the air.

“Get out! Get out of my house!” she screams, backing up and clutching a baby to her chest.

“Mom!” he exclaims. “I mean, Seunghee! I’m sorry, I don’t mean harm—”

The scream comes to an abrupt end, and they both stand there, staring at each other from across the room. His mom looks so much younger, the way he’s only seen in photographs; it strikes him that they’re probably about the same age. He’s never been this far back before.

“Where did you come from? How did you get in here?” she asks, more uncertain now. “Who are you?”

He’s taller than her, so he gets down his knees to be less intimidating. “Do you already know? You look like you already know.” She stares at the blanket in his hand, and he slowly stretches his arm out to her, offering it. “You’ve noticed, right? Your baby disappearing sometimes. Maybe sometimes you see double. Tantrums that cut off in the middle, only to reappear five minutes later.”

She takes the blanket from him, wide-eyed. The pattern matches the one the baby is currently swaddled in, gurgling happily at her chest.

“How did you know?” she asks, in a whisper.

He smiles. She knows. “Hi, Mom.”

Her mouth is open in a wide O, looking between him and the baby in her arms. “Wonwoo?”

He slowly stands again. “He’ll be okay. Or, I will. You don’t need to worry about my condition too much. I make it this far, at least.”

There are tears in her eyes, and her voice catches in her throat. “Baby? My baby?”

It suddenly occurs to him that he’s not sure how much he can reveal here. Jeonghan’s plan had been successful; he’d come here by choice, not by design, but he can’t remember his mother ever telling him about this encounter. He doesn’t want to push it too far, end up changing his own history. It’s this sort of thing that could get him erased from time, he thinks.

Much like the mysterious Chan.

“I can’t stay,” he says. “But I promise, it’s going to be okay. I love you.”

Slipping back is far easier than finding his way there. It feels like letting go. He snaps back to their sofa, Jeonghan pacing the room and wringing his hands, jolting at the sight of him.

“You’re back?” he says, tentative, like he doesn’t really believe it.

“How long was I gone?” he asks. The amount of energy in his body feels electric, like some sort of rising euphoria—did he really just control his ability successfully?

“Less than ten minutes,” he says, and he can see the realisation dawning on Jeonghan’s face, too. “You did it?”

“I did it,” he confirms, coming up empty handed. “Mom was surprised to see me.”

Jeonghan yells and jumps on him in celebration, and Wonwoo squeezes him back hard, swinging him around and laughing. “It worked!”

“Somehow! I’m not going to lie, I had my doubts, but this theory…”

“Sniffer dogs! Wonderful creatures!” Jeonghan says, before releasing Wonwoo to run through to their bedroom. “Wait there!”

No more than ten seconds later, he comes back with a coke can in hand.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the can I found at the party. Right when things started going sideways. I think it might be connected with him.”

He takes the empty can from him carefully. “And if it isn’t?”

“It’s connected with all of this somehow,” he says, certain. “If you try to head to Chan, I think it’ll bridge the gap for you.”

He looks down at the can, unsure again. His connection to this is nowhere near as strong as the baby blanket—it’s a can, that may or may not have belonged (in passing) to a boy he can’t remember.

“I know it sounds hard, but you did it once already. You can at least try with this. If it doesn’t work, I’ll try to feel out something else that’s connected with him, but…this thing gives me crazy instincts whenever I hold it. I think it’s the best we have.”

He’ll make do, then. He trusts Jeonghan.

“Okay. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” he says, and kisses him, firmly. Draws away, only to come back and kiss him again, cupping his head in one hand. “Really. I hope you find something, and come back safe.”

He leans in to kiss him a final time. “I will. I’ll see you soon.”

He sits back on the sofa, lying down again, willing himself to relax. Jeonghan strokes his hair once before leaving his side, footsteps growing distant and leaving the room silent. His mind goes quiet with it. He thinks about the can, about the empty fridge, about the post it notes around the house. Tries to imagine loving someone as much as he loves Jeonghan; tries to feel out this boy, who apparently loves him back. Relaxes into the sofa. _To Chan, to Chan, to Chan._

Rather than being the gentle float it was last time, this jump is difficult. Turbulent, like his whole body is being squeezed tight by the darkness, and he has to push hard to get to where he wants to go. At least it’s not the falling feeling again. He thinks of Chan, of the can, of Jeonghan’s conviction. Of the way he’d been crying on the bathroom floor out of sickness, worried out of his mind for this boy. He looks deep inside him for that connection—for the boy that links everything together. Chan. Chan.

-

When he appears, it’s dark, but the light of the moon is enough to make out his surroundings. He’s stood amongst young trees, thick grass under his feet, the whole place aromatic with greenery and pollen. The earth feels so alive it could be breathing, the air pure with the rich natural life. The stars above twinkle brighter than any stars in his familiar solar system, permeating the dark in such a way that it’s not much trouble to see a way through the woods ahead. A slight trampling of the grass that looks gently used.

The forest is perfectly beautiful and peaceful. He can’t understand why it unnerves him so much.

He only walks for a few minutes before he reaches a large clearing. Here, as if dropped into the middle of the forest from above, is Lee Chan’s childhood home. Stood between two trees in the dark, he stares, not sure what to make of it. It feels wrong, looking at it here. He’s been to this house before, had helped Chan get back here when he’d fallen from his scooter as a kid. It’s supposed to be in the middle of a respectable neighbourhood in Iksan, but instead it’s here, in a beautiful forest, under a set of stars that looks completely unfamiliar. The whole place is wrong. It’s like he’s not on earth anymore.

The memories, though. He knows Lee Chan. He can remember, now. How could he forget?

And how did Chan come to be all the way out here on his own?

It’s almost overwhelmingly quiet. He can’t hear birds, or bugs, or other human life, but there’s a soft light glowing from the front room of the house. Only one thing to do, then.

He goes up to the front door and pushes it open without knocking. Inside is a fully furnished family house, complete with general clutter and personal belongings, ironed clothes and children’s toys scattered about. Lived in and homely. It feels older than the forest around it. And there, standing up from the sofa, is Lee Chan.

“Hyung?” he breathes, wide eyed and staring.

“Chan?” he says. There’s some awfully big feeling his chest, rearing up like he hasn’t seen Chan in a decade. Maybe he hasn’t. It’s still hard to put the pieces together.

He makes to move closer to him, but Chan holds up his hands defensively. “Seungkwan, if this is you, you have to stop. I don’t want an imitation.”

He stops. “What? Chan, what’s going on? How are you here?”

Chan doesn’t blink. “If you’re really Wonwoo, then tell me how you found me here.”

He holds up the coke can slowly, and Chan’s eyes follow it. “Jeonghan pushed me to try and find you. He remembered things. He knew we were missing something, and used my ability to try and find you.”

“What do you remember about me?”

“I remembered your house, when I was outside just now. I remember jumping to your time and helping you home. You’d fallen from your scooter and hurt yourself.”

Chan steps closer, slowly. “And after that?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I’m only just starting to remember properly. Jeonghan could probably remember more, if he were here. He said you were our boyfriend.” He can feel it now, too, the conviction Jeonghan had. It’s like seeing Chan has flooded him with the knowledge he belongs back home, with the two of them.

Chan breathes out, carefully, as if afraid to disturb something in the air. “It’s really you? You found me all the way out here?”

“Yeah.” His heart surges something wild. He still can’t remember him well, but his face is getting more familiar by the second, and his heart is beating like he’s found something terrifying or incredible. Jeonghan was right all along. “Where is here? Where are we?”

Chan finally closes in, wrapping his arms around Wonwoo in a hug, as if he can’t quite believe he’s allowed to. The smell of his hair surges a feeling of home deep in him, and he drops the coke can to hug him back. “You’re on another planet, Wonwoo. It’s Seungkwan. This whole place is him. He’ll already know you’re here.”

“Oh, I do know,” another voice says, and Chan jerks back from the hug to look across the room. A boy their age, seemingly appeared from nowhere, is leaning against the wall and watching them. “I’m waiting with anticipation to see what the hell he thinks he’s doing.”

“Leave him alone,” Chan says, stepping in front of him. “We have a deal!”

“We do,” Seungkwan muses. “Though, I admit, I didn’t see this one coming.”

“You took him from us?” he asks, hands on Chan, holding him close. “Why?”

“Does it matter?” he asks, glaring at him. “God, you’ve been such a pain this whole time, and you’re back again. Do you ever do anything useful?”

“I’ve come for Chan.”

Seungkwan smiles, but it holds no humour. “What’s the plan here? You figured out how to direct your jumps, sure. I know you’re not good enough to bring a person with you, or you would’ve brought Jeonghan. So, what exactly are you going to do?”

“He’s right,” Chan says in a low voice, turning to face him. “You have to go before something bad happens.”

“No,” he says. “Tell me how you’re here, so I can undo it.”

“We’re attached,” Chan says, gripping his hands. “Seungkwan and I, we have been my whole life. If we’re split, he’ll die, so he won’t let me leave this place. Even if you could take me away, he would just follow after you to ruin everything again.” He puts his hands up to Wonwoo’s face, begging. “This is it. There’s nothing you can do. I chose to come here so that you and Jeonghan wouldn’t get caught up in all of this too. I’m sorry, but you have to go.”

“If I split you two, you’ll be free?”

“Listen to me, you can’t!” he hisses, fingertips pressing into skin, trying to press his conviction in deep. “You don’t know what he is!”

“You’d better be leaving now, Jeon Wonwoo,” Seungkwan warns, pushing away from the wall. “You’re not meant to be here.”

“I can,” he says, ignoring Seungkwan, grasping Chan back just as tightly. “I’m going to do it. I can’t take a person with me when I jump, but I’ve always been able to take other things.”

“What?”

“I’m right, I can help you. Why else is he so anxious for me to leave? I made it here, into his space. You were supposed to be gone from our reach, right? But we remembered you. Between Jeonghan and I, we’re enough to take him on.”

“You don’t know anything.” Seungkwan disappears, only to reappear up on the stairs, looking down on them. Playing at intimidation.

“I’m right,” he whispers, pulling Chan close. “I can do this.”

“You could.” They both look up at Seungkwan, who steps down the stairs slowly. “But even if you were successful, you wouldn’t like the consequences. Chan has never existed without me. If you split us apart, I would be gone completely, and it would change everything for you. All of you. You’d have nothing left. There’s no winning. I have him, or no one has him. These are your only options.”

He steps down onto the bottom step, feet away from them. A challenge. Wonwoo turns back to Chan, takes his face in his hands, and kisses him.

“Don’t be stupid,” Seungkwan warns. “He’s alive and well here. You can’t play the hero without damning him too. Go back and live your life with Jeonghan.”

He ignores him in favour of listening to Chan, whose fingers are curled into Wonwoo’s shirt. “What are you doing?” he whispers, face close.

“I’m going to save you,” he promises. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

He moves with speed, tearing himself from Chan’s grip to lunge at Seungkwan, who disappears from his spot before he can reach him.

The thing is, two can play at that game. The way Seungkwan moves between the dimensions of space and time—he can do too, has been doing it his whole life. It’s not hard to follow behind now that he’s learned to take control, moving through the folds of space in a way that’s as familiar as walking. He follows after Seungkwan’s trail, out of the house, back through the forest, winding between trees, never letting his form out of sight. Across a lake and up a mountain, he tries to ditch Wonwoo on the slopes, but there’s no way to escape when this planet is so small. He sees everything, and it is all Seungkwan; in turn, Seungkwan sees him right back. Claws out with branches, with waves, with a landslide on the high mountain. Still, he slips through them all, able to keep up with him until they loop back around to the forest.

“Stop!” Seungkwan shouts, taking his human form again. Wonwoo does the same, standing metres away in the clearing, watching. Around him, the branches of nearby trees rustle and contort, moving in unnatural ways. A threat. “You don’t understand the consequences of what you’re doing,” he says, backing up even as Wonwoo starts to make his way across the grass towards him. “You’ll undo everything. You’ll ruin us all!”

“I’ll ruin you, you mean. We’ll do fine without you.”

When he’s feet away from Seungkwan, almost close enough to reach out and take his arm, something sears at his side, hot and painful, making him cry out. He looks down to see that one of the tree branches, lashed out and ripped through his skin, has cut open a large gash in his side—his white shirt starts colouring red immediately. It hurts, badly, makes his head feel light with the pain of it.

It only confirms what he’d already believed. Seungkwan is afraid of him. Afraid enough to try and kill him, despite the wrath he’d receive from Chan for it. If Seungkwan is that afraid, it means Wonwoo can win.

“Stop this,” he says, watching as Wonwoo falls to his knees, disoriented. “Go back. You don’t have to die for this, Wonwoo!”

“Hyung!” Chan’s voice calls out from a way through the trees—he must have seen them from the house. Seungkwan turns his head, as if it were him Chan could possibly be calling to.

“Good thing I won’t, then,” he grits, before lunging forwards. It works—with Seungkwan distracted, Wonwoo’s hand meets his arm, and he wills himself _away from here._

It’s strange, travelling with another person. Another being, really—Seungkwan is closer to the darkness he travels through than he is a real human. He’s never been all that aware of himself when he jumps. Usually, he’s in one place, and then another, with a blink of black in between. Now, with this entity at his side, it’s like he can feel every star he passes by, every atom in the air they’re manipulating, travelling through space and time. It feels like Seungkwan is pulling against him, trying to control of their jump.

So when they make it, they’re in a place Wonwoo doesn’t recognise. Anonymous white walls betray a hospital building, and there’s a woman on a bed front of them, crying out in pain. Two women in scrubs are by her side, speaking to her gently.

“Oh, you’ve done it now,” Seungkwan says, and for the first time, his voice is anything but level. It’s like he’s gritting his teeth, bending over to withstand sudden pain, hands on his knees. Wonwoo doesn’t release his arm. “You don’t know what you’ve started.”

“Mrs. Lee! Keep pushing!” a midwife says. No one in the room pays them any attention.

“Is this…?”

“Chan’s birth,” Seungkwan says, swaying in his grip. “The time we were bonded. Listen, there’s time to undo this. Let go of me. Starting over would benefit all of us—we could do it properly, this time. You all grow old together, the full happy ending! I’ll be more careful, and none of you will ever have to deal with me—”

“No,” he says, and he drags him away again, the room around them washing away and changing quickly.

They struggle through black together, and form again inside a bedroom, dark and quiet. He staggers a little as they land; his side is killing him, shirt wet and sticking with blood.

“Listen!” Seungkwan says, voice high and panicked now. “I’m not doing this to hurt you or Chan or anyone! He’s my friend!”

“Wait,” Wonwoo says, ignoring him. “This is my baby bedroom. Why are we here?”

“I don’t know!” Seungkwan cries, trying to push Wonwoo’s hand from his arm, but his hands are feeble, shaking. “You’re the one dragging me halfway across the universe to get me killed!”

“That’s me,” he murmurs, dragging Seungkwan over to the cot in the corner of the room.

The baby inside sleeping soundly. Seungkwan’s push on his hand is getting weaker by the second, and he almost falls to his knees with the movement, as if he can barely hold himself together.

Wonwoo looks down at him with disgust. “This is really killing you. This is all it takes? Separation from Chan?”

Seungkwan doesn’t answer, but makes a sound like choking, and starts grasping at his neck. The skin on his neck is changing, becoming something brilliantly bright, a dazzling white light forming between his hands and shining forwards from his body.

“What is that? Is it part of you?”

Seungkwan squeezes his eyes shut, pressing down on the light, but it shines through his fingers anyway. The beam lands directly on the baby version of himself in the crib. He blinks, and the baby is gone.

“Hey!” He grips Seungkwan harder. “It was you! My condition—it was your fault all along?”

Seungkwan has panic written all over his face, hands pressing down hard on his neck. “I’m going supernova. Take me back. Please. Take me back to Chan.”

They’re moving again, Seungkwan’s last attempt at escape. It’s not hard to pull him away from Chan— _not that way_ —and in the opposite direction. After seeing the display with his baby self, he has a feeling he knows where they need to go next.

They appear on an almost empty beach at dusk. There’s a little boy picking up shells along the sea line, and, a long way away, woman trailing behind him.

“Don’t go too far ahead, Jeonghan!” she calls.

“Okay!” the small Jeonghan calls back, focused on trying to hold all the shells he can in one arm.

“You tried to pull him away from us, but you’re what brings the three of us together in the first place,” he says, wrapping his arms around him to grip at both wrists, pulling them away from his light.

Seungkwan falls to his knees with a cry. The light from him grows bigger, quickly, and shines onto Jeonghan, but no one else on the beach seems to notice. Jeonghan slows to a stop in front of them, drops all his shells, and looks back to his Mom, mouth open.

“It was your influence all along. You’re the reason for all of it.”

Seungkwan drops into the sand, choking. The light has split all the way down his chest, creeping up his neck to his jaw, beginning to run along each arm. His form is disappearing by the second.

“You’ve ruined everything,” he heaves, hands clawing at his own light. Wonwoo stands over him, hand still gripping his arm to keep him from leaving. “I didn’t want this. I was—I tried to make him happy—”

“I don’t know what you are, but you’ve never belonged in Chan’s life.”

Seungkwan shakes his head. The light reaches his eyes, piercing silver replacing the soft brown. “I’m about to go supernova, and it’ll take everything here with me. You’re the one who ruined everything you had.”

Shit. Gotta go— _far away_. Away enough that Seungkwan won’t take this planet with him in the collateral of his death.

In a blink, they’re back on Seungkwan’s planet. The forests are rich, and the bond is severed. He cries out, his whole body bright, bursting with light.

“Chan!” Seungkwan yells out. Wonwoo looks up, and Chan is there, running towards them between the trees.

He finally releases his grip on Seungkwan, can tell he’s too far gone to come back from this. He and Chan run to each other, meeting in the grass clearing, a little way away from the light of the supernova.

“You did it,” Chan says, hands coming to Wonwoo’s side, covering the bleeding. “Holy shit, what did he do?”

“I did it,” he says, knocking his forehead against Chan’s. “We’re free.”

Seungkwan reaches out to them, hand dazzling and weak in the soft grass.

“Chan,” he breathes. “I was always your friend.” His face is indistinguishable under the force of the light. For the first time, Wonwoo realises the ground under them is shaking—the whole place is about to blow with him. “I love you. I never meant for this.”

“I loved you too,” Chan says, looking down at him and hugging Wonwoo closer. “Once.”

This is it, then. He can’t leave Chan here to die in a collapsing star, but he can’t take him away, either.

“I love you,” he says, holding onto Chan. “I hope this isn’t the end.”

“I love you too. You and Jeonghan both.”

Seungkwan’s light surges, brightens, forces him to close his eyes.

Then, he can feel Chan slipping from his arms. His ability is pulling at him, the pain and adrenaline finally getting the better of him, forcing him to jump away. “No!” He reaches out for the boy that isn’t there, slipping far away through time.

He should go somewhere familiar, if he can. He wants to see them again.

He lands and meets eyes with himself, and then with Jeonghan, still with his infamous long hair. And then Chan, young and bright-eyed. Their first date, all three of them together.

“Wonwoo?” Chan says, standing up.

Jeonghan stands up after him, wide-eyed and staring at his bloody side. The younger Wonwoo stays sat, watching him.

“It was him all along,” he says, because he feels like he should warn them, but it’s hard to recall what exactly he’s running from. It feels like something big. Something gone.

His side hurts. He’s moving again, appears in his high school hall, hidden behind a crowd of people. A man on stage calls his name, and an eighteen-year-old Wonwoo is moving up the steps. The audience claps politely.

He’s gone.

He’s in a hotel room. His younger self is unpacking a bag. It’s their family holiday to Jeju, one of his fondest childhood memories.

He’s there for seconds. Everything is coming apart.

This time, when the blackness stops rushing by, he’s in a dim bedroom. A baby’s bedroom, with an infant asleep in the cot. It’s not familiar, so it must be Chan. It’s always Chan.

“Ah.” He falls to his knees by the crib, sighing, pressing a shaking hand to his side. The blood is dripping onto the carpet, and his head is getting light. “This must be it. My end is your beginning.”

He speaks in a hushed voice, so not as to wake him. “I hope we all make it out of this mess. I hope you can live a normal life.” He hangs his head. His whole body feels heavy.

Jeonghan is still back there, waiting for him. He doesn’t want to leave him alone.

One more jump.

“I’ll be back for you,” he whispers to the baby. “I’ll find you again.”

It’s confusing, and dark. It’s difficult to direct the jump, but home must be where he’s supposed to go, because that’s where he finds himself when he comes to.

“Wonwoo?” Jeonghan’s voice says, panicked, and he can feel hands around his body. It’s hard to hold himself up, so he leans against him whole-heartedly. “What happened?”

“Did it,” he says, chest heaving. “But it’s unravelled everything.”

“Unravelled? What?”

He clutches at Jeonghan, holding him close with the last of his energy. “Saved him. But we’re about to be undone.”

“Will we be back?” Jeonghan says, grasping back hard, as if they can slip away together. “Will I see you both again?”

He doesn’t know. His head is buzzing with noise. “I hope so.”

Darkness closing in.

“He loves you too.”

-

He becomes one with the atoms of the universe. He’s shining so brightly, burning into nothing. Less than nothing.

Chan is gone, and he’s all alone. Everything is undone.

-

The scooter catches a crack in the concrete, and the wheel sticks there, throwing him onto the unforgiving street surface. It bites at his knees and stings his hands, and tears spring to his eyes.

“Chan?” Hansol calls back from where his scooter had sped ahead, unimpeded by things like unlucky potholes.

He breathes in a hitched breath and tries not to wail. It comes out as a halfway sob as he sits back on the sidewalk, staring down at his bloody hands, the freshly cut knees.

“Chan!” Hansol says, coming up to him and taking his hands in his own. He’s gentle, and that’s what breaks him—he feels so fragile, like he could fall apart, and his hands are testament to that. The blood trailing down his legs is testament to that.

“Hyung!” he wails, looking down at the scrapes helplessly. “It hurts!”

“It’s okay!” Hansol says, voice high and alarmed. “Let’s go back to your mom!” His little hands close around Chan’s wrists to help pull him up, and Chan lets himself be pulled, wobbling unhappily on uncertain feet.

“I’ll take your scooter!” he announces, picking it up in one hand, reaching down for his own with his other hand. “Let’s go back to yours!”

It must be hard for him to direct both scooters at once, because Hansol ends up dragging them through the streets. The metal scraping against stone is unpleasant, and his hands sting, and he’s frustrated by the way he can’t wipe the tears from his face, doing his best with the back of his hands. It makes him cry harder, and he wants the grit out of his hands now, wants to go back and play with Hansol.

When they turn into his home street, he can’t wait any longer, and takes off to run ahead. Down the narrow road, all the way until he reaches his house, barging inside to find Mom.

“Mom!” he calls. “I fell!”

“Oh, baby,” his mom says, emerging from the kitchen. “Are you okay?”

“I need a dinosaur bandage,” he says, showing her his hands. “Look. It hurts.”

Once he has a band-aid on each palm and two on his knees, all kissed better by Mom, she looks over to the open front door. Hansol is standing in the entrance, awkwardly holding both scooters. “Oh, Hansol!” she says, coming over to him. “It’s alright, let me take those. Do you want to stay for dinner?”

“Oh, please stay!” Chan pipes up, energy restored by the dinosaur band-aids.

“Yes, please,” Hansol says, running further into the house as soon as he relinquishes the scooters. He reaches Chan, and peers to look at his hands.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, holding up his palms to show him the dinosaurs. “I’ll live.”

-

“Hey,” he says to Hansol in the middle of math class. “Do you think Seokmin would go on a date with me if I asked him?”

“You want to go on a date with Seokmin?” Hansol asks, frowning at the sum Teacher Kang is writing on the board.

“Yeah. I think he’s cute. Do you think he’d say yes?”

“I don’t know. Only one way to find out,” Hansol says, starting to smile.

“Correct,” Chan grins, standing as Teacher Kang begins passing out worksheets, offering to hand them out for her. She hands him the worksheets without protest, and continues speaking about the task.

“Good luck!” Hansol whispers, sending him an exaggerated thumbs up.

Teacher Kang sits down in her seat, which is a cue for the students to completely ignore the worksheets in front of them. The kids he passes by turn to each other, barely acknowledging him, talking about anything other than math.

“Hey,” he says when he reaches Seokmin’s table. The seat next to him is empty, so he takes that as a good sign, and sits down as he passes him his worksheet.

“Thanks!”

“It’s okay,” he smiles, as if he came all the way over here to deliver Seokmin his worksheet personally. Well. He sort of did. “Hey, have you seen that funfair they put up in the city?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you been to it?”

“No, just heard about it. It looks so cool! Have you been?”

“Actually, I wondered if you wanted to go? Together?”

Seokmin blinks at him. “With the others?”

“No, I mean together. The two of us.” He shuffles a little closer, puts on his prettiest smile. “If you want to.”

Seokmin’s eyes widen a little as he catches on. “Oh! Well. Sure?”

He’ll take that as an enthusiastic yes. “Great!”

“Lee Chan, please get back in your seat!” Teacher Kang sighs from the front.

“I’ll see you there on Saturday? At 6?”

Seokmin blinks again, nodding quickly as Chan stands up to head back to his seat. He sends him a wink before turning his back, dropping down at his desk beside Hansol. Flawlessly executed, if he does say so himself.

“How’d it go?” Hansol whispers to him as he sits again.

“Pretty well, I think. Did I just snag a date?”

“Hell yeah!” Hansol says, holding his hand up for a high five. Chan obliges gladly, smile wide as their hands meet with a clap.

-

He waits for at the gates of the fair for ten minutes longer than he’d been prepared to, growing more anxious by the second. Is Seokmin ditching him? Maybe he should’ve doubled checked he really wanted to come. What if he’s left standing here by himself until he has to admit defeat, walk home alone? What if—

“Sorry!” Seokmin shouts, and Chan turns to see him running down the road towards him. “My bus was so late!”

“I was getting worried!” he says, but the relief breaks his face into a smile. “Why didn’t you call?”

“Dead phone,” Seokmin says, slowing as he comes to a stop in front of him. “Typical me. I’m sorry, I’m a disaster.”

He smiles, despite himself. “Don’t worry about it. You’re here now, so you can buy me popcorn to make up for it.”

“If it’s popcorn you want, then popcorn you shall get!”

He giggles at him, and under the guise of his delight, gathers the courage to reach out and take Seokmin’s hand as they enter the fair together. From the way Seokmin beams back at him, eyes in turned up into pleased lines, it must be a good decision.

When they’re through the entrance of the fair he’s faced with an array of stalls, games, rides, and food carts. The neon lights and striped tents are a feast for the eyes, and it’s hard to take it all in at once. The Ferris wheel is the first thing he notices, standing proud over the rest of the field; his eyes wander over to the cotton candy machine, then the bumper cars. For some reason, this whole place gives him the strongest wave of déjà vu, holding tight at his chest. He’s never been to a funfair in his life, but he’s had strange problems with déjà vu before. Sometimes it hits him so badly he feels nauseous. Sometimes he’s left staring at things in his life—a dinosaur toy, a towel, occasionally even his little brother—and wondering why they feel so much bigger than they are.

The Ferris wheel is doing that to him right now, out of nowhere. When he comes back to himself, Seokmin is waving a hand in front of his face. “Chan? You okay?”

“Oh, sorry!” he says. “I have attention problems, sometimes. My parents want to get me tested for ADHD.” He doesn’t think they’ll find anything. It’s just that sometimes, he feels like mundane things are important, and he has to understand them. It’s distracting.

“That’s okay! Did you wanna go on the wheel first?” Seokmin asks kindly, following his eyeline.

“No,” he says, pulling him in the other direction. “Let’s not go on that. Do you want to try hook-a-duck?”

They win a stuffed bunny on hook-a-duck, share a bucket of popcorn between them, and ride the carousel together, because Seokmin can’t handle the fast rides. That’s okay. He mainly came to hang out with him, anyway. It’s a great night, and they walk around the whole fair together, wasting money and talking together until it’s starting to get dark.

When they leave, he offers to walk Seokmin to his bus stop. He doesn’t live far from here, and he’ll be able to walk home alone okay. Once they’re out of the bustle of the fair, things fall comfortably quiet between them, and Chan clutches the bunny to his chest instead of reaching out for Seokmin’s hand again.

Several streets away from the lights and noise of the fair, the night seems quiet, and he’s forced to face the words running around his head.

“Hyung,” he starts, once they reach the deserted bus stop.

“Yes?” Seokmin asks, smiling softly.

“I had a really good night,” he says, crossing his arms against the cool air. “Thank you for coming with me.”

“You’re welcome. I had a great time too.”

He smiles, and shrugs a little, trying to get warmth into him. “I hope you’re not offended or anything, since I was the one who asked you out in the first place, but next time we hang out, can it be as friends?”

He’d realised somewhere around the photobooth that he doesn’t really want to kiss Seokmin. He loves spending time with him, and laughing together, and had liked holding his hand just fine, but no more than that. Seokmin is cute, but they’re better off as friends, rather than trying to push this thing onto him because he’s testing out his interest in boys.

“Oh!” Seokmin says, and there’s relief on his face. “No, that’s fine! Really, I didn’t want to have to let you down or anything—”

“No, it’s okay,” he rushes to say. “I don’t mind. I don’t regret asking you, but I think it helped me realise that we’re better as friends.”

Seokmin’s face lights up again. “Agreed. Phew! Boy, you don’t know how nervous I was about that!” Headlights flash on them both as Seokmin’s bus pulls around the street corner.

“It’s okay! I feel the same. Thank you for the bunny, though. He’ll take a place in my bedroom.”

“Good!” Seokmin says, signalling the bus, and Chan begins backing away, waving at him. “I’ll see you again soon, yeah? We should bring Hansol and Samuel, next time.”

“Yeah! Will do. See you soon!”

The bus doors slide shut behind him, and they wave to each other as the bus drives away. Once it’s out of sight, Chan takes off home, holding the stuffed bunny tight.

-

His first day of university overwhelms him so badly he throws up in the library restroom. Some other students find him there, awkwardly asking him if he’s okay from outside the cubicle door. He stops gagging long enough to call back, reassure them he’s fine, he just needs a moment.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if the campus makes him feel like this every time he comes here. His déjà vu has been pretty bad at times, but he’s never had a reaction like this. Maybe he should visit a specialist—this can’t be normal, throwing up because visiting a school library makes you feel so strange, grips your heart and pulls as if it’s achingly familiar. These feelings usually come and go, and he can never understand why they come about. Being on Kyunghee University campus feels like a constant weight on his chest, like there’s something terribly important about this place. For the life of him, he doesn’t know why.

Once he’s sure he’s done throwing up, he leaves the library, vowing never to come back. He finds the dance block instead, scoping the place out before his first class on Monday. It’s not a whole lot better, still makes him feel anxious and desperately nostalgic, but it’s bearable. He can withstand it long enough to get around the building and get out again, sweating in his padded coat.

His student house is much the same. When his parents had been helping him move the day before, he’d done his best to hide from them how much it had affected him there. With the pressure on his chest slowly loosening as he walks away from campus, he avoids his building’s part of town entirely, postponing going back home for as long as he can. How will he bear this for three years? What’s so wrong with him that this place affects him so strongly?

He wanders into a section of Seoul with streets of family-owned businesses and local stores, and he wanders around them aimlessly for a while. This place feels a lot calmer, and he window-shops, perusing clothes and specialist grocery stores. Thinks that maybe he’ll contact his parents, ask if it’s too late to transfer. Surely this feeling can’t be nerves. He’s fine with the idea of being away from home; it’s something about the school that’s getting to him.

When he turns a corner into a food street, he realises how hungry he is. The smell is amazing, and the variety is even better. He passes a few Chinese places, Thai food, Sushi, Turkish food, even a place that specialises in African dishes. Looking for something a little more familiar on his first day in a new city, he keeps going until he reaches a place at the end of the street that specialises in tteokbokki.

The feeling hits him so hard he nearly falls back, coming on all at once.

Looking past the menu and in through the window, he takes in the sight of the place, warm lighting and bustling with couples, friends, families. He’s never heard of the place, but his heart knows it so unbearably firmly.

In the corner, two men are sitting at a four-seater table. The one with his back to him has dark hair and glasses, and he’s talking with the man opposite him earnestly. The second man is eye-catching—long blond hair falls past his shoulders, and he looks at the dark-haired man intently, listening to everything he has to say.

Chan stares. He can’t help it. Something about this man hits him right in the heart, and he’s breathless, dizzy with the sight of him. He doesn’t know what it means, but he finds himself entering the tteokbokki place without thinking, feet compelling him to move forwards.

The blonde man looks up at him as he enters, and Chan looks right back, loosening his scarf and willing his heart to slow.

The man stands immediately, and the look on his face is positively elated, like he’s amazed that he’s here. He’s never seen this man before—except something is telling him that he has.

The man sat in front of him turns to see what his partner is looking at, and when he meets eyes with Chan, he abruptly stands too. “Chan?”

He’s frozen in the doorway, looking across at them. A warm tear runs down his cold cheek, and he wonders why he’s crying.

“Who—who are you?” he says, voice shaking. “Why do I know you?”

He knows their names. How does he know their names? Wonwoo comes over to him, eyes shining behind round glasses, and slowly takes him into a hug. “Chan... you’re really here?”

Inexplicably, he hugs him back. The overwhelming feeling is subsiding, and he can recognise the feeling left in its wake. Familiarity—love.

Jeonghan approaches him from the side, takes his hand. Wonwoo backs out of the hug, and Jeonghan takes his place, and Chan has never had a hug that felt so much like home before. “You found us. Thank you. I knew you would.”

The tears are blurring his vision. “Can you explain? Please, I—this is a lot—”

“Of course,” Wonwoo smiles, face creasing with joy. “Sit, sit down. We have a lot to tell you.”

“Welcome home, baby,” Jeonghan says, stroking the back of his head once before sitting down opposite him. “Now. Where to begin?”

-

For their five-year anniversary, they take a trip to Japan together, and stay at a ski resort where they request the biggest bed available. The woman at the desk doesn’t ask too many questions, and they’re able to book in successfully.

When they make it to their room, Chan begins to run around it in delight. There are windows that look out on the resort, floor to ceiling, giving them a wide view of the white slopes, snow sparkling in the sun.

“We made it!” he exclaims, throwing the curtains aside to bask in the sight properly.

“Of course we did,” Jeonghan says, dropping the bags on the floor and throwing himself on their huge bed. “This has been a long time coming.”

“We never would’ve done this in our first life,” he says, pressing his face against the glass. “We would’ve been too worried Wonwoo would disappear mid-flight.”

“True,” Wonwoo calls, voice echoing through from where he’s assessing the bathroom. “Even boats were a bit of a risk.”

“But now we’ve made it,” he says, turning back to beam at Jeonghan, who’s watching him from the bed. “It turned out better after all.”

Wonwoo emerges from the bathroom. “Good thing it did. I didn’t nearly bleed to death for nothing.”

“You saved him from the crazy planet kidnapper so we could go skiing?” Jeonghan asks, eyebrows raised.

Wonwoo shrugs. “Sure. It’s a benefit.”

“Speaking of,” Chan says, meeting Wonwoo’s eyes. “Are you ready to hit the slopes?”

“Now?” Jeonghan asks, incredulous. “We just arrived!”

“No time like the present,” Wonwoo grins, taking Jeonghan’s hand and hauling him up from the bed.

“You’re not going to shower or anything…?”

“Makes sense to do it after we ski, doesn’t it?” he says, pushing Jeonghan through the door and out into the resort building from the back, as Wonwoo pulls him from the front. “It’ll be fun!”

“You two are going to be the death of me,” Jeonghan laughs, only half-heartedly putting up a fight.

When they’re strapped into the winter-gear, sleds in hand, he and Wonwoo race outside and up the slope, Jeonghan calling after them. Chan doesn’t make it far before he stumbles and falls into the snow, laughing and kicking up the fine white flakes around him. Jeonghan gains on him, and throws himself into the snow next to him, as if it were the bed back in their room.

He throws a handful of snow at him. “You can’t stop here, Hyung!”

“I swear, you two and inclines,” Jeonghan huffs, lying back and throwing his own clump of snow lazily. “Look, I’m making a snow angel. It’s important.”

“Ah, of course,” he says, laying back with him and spreading his arms out. When they both stand again, he looks down on the smudged imprint of two human figures, wings splayed out.

“Come on, slowpokes!” Wonwoo calls from ahead. Chan steps straight through his creation to catch up with him.

“Need a hand, Hyung?” he asks, holding his hand out in offering.

“Oh, I won’t be the one in last place,” Jeonghan says, suddenly taking off ahead of him.

“Hey!” he laughs, running after him, kicking up snow in his wake. From up ahead, Wonwoo watches them, face shining with delight.

Being at the top is breath-taking. There’s snow as far as they can see in every direction, down each side of the mountain. The air up here is so crisp that every breath drawn in feels new.

“Together?” Wonwoo asks, placing his sled down on the ledge of snow.

“Of course,” Chan says, sitting beside him.

On his other side, Jeonghan sits on his own sled. “Ready?”

Chan pushes off strong, the sled taking to the slope easily. “Go!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wonwoo when he realised the timeline had been reset: now THATS a cultural reset
> 
> also,  
> me in the summary: the plot of this fic is time travel  
> me in the fic: the plot of this fic is PLANET SEUNGKWAN
> 
> man, i loved working on this one. imma miss it. this trio was so fun to write, antagonist seungkwan was so exciting to plan out, i love time travel, i love ppl loving chan... fantastic. i hope you liked it too!  
> if you did, leave me a kudos/comment so that i know!! concrit is welcome too<3 
> 
> you can rt this fic [here!](https://twitter.com/hope_boos/status/1236015987625013249?s=19)  
> my cc is [here](https://curiouscat.me/hobiyaah), my beta is [here](https://twitter.com/koyahyah) and you can come yell at me on [twt](https://twitter.com/hope_boos) if you like!


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